Part 26 (2/2)
”Well, you are here and we have met in this church, where we parted.”
”Yes, it's odd, isn't it? I wish it had been somewhere else. I don't like this gloomy old place with its atmosphere of death. Come outside.”
They went, and when they were through the churchyard gates walked at hazard towards the stream which ran through the grounds of Hawk's Hall.
Here they sat down upon a fallen willow, watching the swallows skim over the surface of the placid waters, and for a while were silent.
They had so much to say to each other that it seemed as though scarcely they knew where to commence.
”Tell me,” she said at length, ”were you in the square garden on the night of that dance at which I came out? Oh! I see by your look that you were. Then why did you not speak to me instead of standing behind a bush, watching in that mean fas.h.i.+on?”
”I wasn't properly dressed for parties, and--and--you seemed to be--very much engaged--with a rose and a knight in armour.”
”Engaged! It was only part of a game. I wrote and told you all about it in the letter you did not get. Did you never kiss a flower for a joke and give it to someone, not knowing that you were being watched?”
G.o.dfrey coloured and s.h.i.+fted uneasily on his log.
”Well, as a matter of fact,” he said, ”it is odd that you should have guessed--for something of the sort did once happen quite by accident.
Also I _was_ watched.”
”I!--you mean _we_. One doesn't kiss flowers by oneself and give them to the air. It would be more ridiculous even than the other thing.”
”I will tell you all about it if you like,” he stammered confusedly.
She looked at him with her large, steady grey eyes, and answered in a cold voice:
”No, thank you, I don't like. Nothing bores me so much as other people's silly love affairs.”
Baffled in defence, G.o.dfrey resorted to attack.
”What has become of the knight in armour?” he asked.
”He is married and has twins. I saw the announcement of their birth in the paper yesterday. And what has become of the lady with the flower?
For since there was a flower, there must have been a lady; I suppose the same whom you pulled up the precipice.”
”She is married also, to her cousin, but I don't know that she has any children yet, and I never pulled her up any precipice. It was a man I pulled, a very heavy one. My arm isn't quite right yet.”
”Oh!” said Isobel. Then with another sudden change of voice she went on. ”Now tell me all about yourself, G.o.dfrey. There must be such lots to say, and I long to hear.”
So he told her, and she told him of herself, and they talked and talked till the shadows of advancing night began to close around them.
Suddenly G.o.dfrey looked at his watch, of which he could only just see the hands.
”My goodness!” he said, ”it is half-past seven.”
”Well, what about it? It doesn't matter when I dine, for I have come down alone here for a few days, a week perhaps, to get the house ready for my father and his friends.”
”Yes, but my father dines at seven, and if there is one thing he hates it is being kept waiting for dinner.”
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