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He was now standing face to face with her. He spoke in a low voice but not in even tones, until she gave a little cry—it sounded like a sob—when he was half way through his sentences, making a motion of protest with one hand; then his voice became quite steady—steady almost to a point of coldness.
She did not answer him at once. But there came a silence, through which they could both hear the hum of the wild bees on the green bank.
Two sulphur butterflies danced above them in the air.
She watched the butterflies, and then glanced at the bank.
“There is sweet briar about here I am sure,” she said, as if they had been discussing the herbarium.
He thought he appreciated her mood of the moment.
“Yes,” he said; “I think there must be sweet briar somewhere.”
He did not stir hand or foot. His hands were in the pocket of his jacket.
She took a few steps to the bank; then her sunshade slipped from her shoulder and fell awkwardly on the ground behind her; for she had no hand to hold it; she was holding both her hands to her face sobbing in them.
He made no move. He did not even recover her sunshade, sprawling there a mighty crimson thing among the crimson poppies and the pink. He could not understand her tears; he only felt that she could not be indifferent to him. There are only two sorts of tears; they never come from indifference.
And then she seated herself on the bank and wiped her tears away with her handkerchief. He saw how the sunlight was snared among the strands of her hair. He had never known that it had that reddish gold tinge among its masses of rich brown. It maddened him with its beauty; but still he could not move. He had a feeling that it would be fatal for him to make the least movement.
He had ample time to admire this newly-discovered charm of her hair, for she did not look at him nor did she speak until several minutes had passed.
Then she tossed from her the handkerchief that she had rolled into a round mass, as a child flings its ball away, and the recklessness that the act suggested was prolonged in her voice, as she said:
“What a fool I am! Why should I cry because I know that you love me when I too know that I love you, and that whatever happens I shall marry you—you—you—and not the man whom I promised to marry? What a fool!”
He was beside her in a moment. An inarticulate sound of triumph had come from him—the legacy of some carniverous ancestor coeval with Adam. He was kissing her hands, and her face, and, when she bowed her head, he kissed the shining beauty of her hair.
It had the taste of sunlight.
She did not take any great pains to prevent him. She did not at that moment see that there was a particular need to do so. It seemed to her so good to be kissed by him.
He had an impression that she kissed him back—once.
Then they looked into each other’s faces and laughed quite pleasantly.
“How funny, isn’t it?” she said, “you have not seen me more than a dozen times.”
He was unable to see what was funny in the matter—that was why he laughed very seriously, and whispered, “My beloved!” in her ear.
“My beloved,” he said again holding her hand close to him. “My beloved, never say that I have not been seeing you all my life. From the time I first knew what love meant I loved you—an ideal—I loved the Ideal that was you. I wondered if I should ever meet you. I hoped that I should or it would not have been worth my while to live. But I met you—you came to me.”
“Yes, I have come to you,” she said. “But...”
“Ah, why should you introduce that note of discord?” he cried. “You said something just now—something—I wonder if I heard it aright... Never mind. This hour is mine, is it not?”
“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “You have made it yours, have you not? Oh, yes it must be your hour—and mine—I suppose it must be mine too—because I never felt so happy before; and I do not even let the thought of—of—the other man come between us.”
There was a dreadful recklessness in her voice. She could not help it: she felt reckless at that moment. She felt that she was retaliating justly upon the man who had tricked her. She would have liked if he had suddenly appeared on the other side of the stile and looked on. She would have kissed her lover before his face. What could he have done to her? Did he really fancy that Pierce Winwood would allow him to interfere? If he did he was a fool.
He did not know that it is part of a woman’s nature to be reckless—once in her life; and he became a little afraid of the way in which she was speaking to him. He did not know how she had been driven ahead by the thought that another man had tried to trick her into being true to him.
She was having her retaliation.
He did not object in the least to be a participator in it, though he knew nothing about it. He held her hands in his own and looked into her face.
“You were right,” he whispered; “it is the best day of my life. And I thought that I came here by chance. You love me, don’t you? I wonder if you really do love me. Shall I awaken and find that this marvel of sunshine and summer has fled forever? Were you really thinking of me as I came up? It seems ridiculous to hope so much.”
“I think I must have been thinking of you,” she said, “if I had not been thinking of you should I have felt so... Oh, I recollect now—I was not thinking of you—I was only thinking of the loveliness of the world—that was why I felt angry that he had bound me to him—if I never really hated him before I hated him then. You will not let me go back to him, will you? You must promise to save me from him.”
She had caught him by the arm. All her recklessness had vanished. She was appealing to him as a child appeals to one for protection against a bogey man.
He had his arms about her.
“No one shall take you from me,” he said. “Who is it that you fear, my dearest?”
She stared at him for some moments, and then burst into a laugh.
“I forgot—I forgot,” she cried. “You never heard it. How was it possible for you to hear it?”
Then she put down a hand to his that clasped her waist, and held it away from her. Her eyes were looking out over the whispering breadth of the wheat-field. The wood pigeons were still rising at intervals and curving downward with a glint of sunlight on their feathers.
