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The two stood spell-bound watching that beautiful thing of blue picked out with red, as it went mightily on its way down the wall of standing grain, stretching out its pendulous arms with a rhythmic regularity that a poet might have envied,—lifting the material for a sheaf and laying it along with more than the tenderness of a mother for her child, laying it in its cot.
How much more picturesque—how much more stimulating to the imagination was not this marvellous creature—this graminivorous reanimated thing of the early world, than the squalid shrill-voiced, beer-ex-haling reapers of the fields in the days gone by? This was the boldly expressed opinion of both the watchers, though each of them had a good word to say for the cycle of the sickle.
“The sickle was the lyric of the wheatfield, the reaping machine is the epic,” said Josephine, with a laugh at her attempt to satisfy an exacting recollection of a picture of Ruth, the Moabitess, with her sickle in a field flooded with moonlight, as well as an inexorable sense of what is due to the modern inventor.
“My dearest,” said he, “I know now that you are happy. Are you happy, my dearest?”
“Ah, happy, happy, happy!” she whispered, when their faces were only an inch or two apart.
They watched the wood pigeons circling, and dip-. ping with the exceeding delicacy of cherubic wings until they dropped upon the surface of the freshly cleared space. They breathed the warm fragrance of the sun-saturated air, with now and again a whiff of the wild thyme that caused them to hear through the whir of the machinery the faint strain of a Shakesperian lyric floating above the oxlips and nodding violets of that bank beside them—and the sweet briar that was somewhere, loved of the wild bee. The sulphur butterflies went through their dances in the air, and more than one velvety butterfly in brown—a floating pansy—swung on the poppies of the path.
“You are happy,” he said again.
“Happy—happy, happy,” she repeated.
Happiness was in her face—in her parted lips—in her half closed eyes—in the smile of the maiden who loves she knows not why, and she cares not whom.
She was not quite so happy when she had returned to her home two hours later and her father met her saying:
“My dearest child, Ernest Clifton has been with me and he has persuaded me. Josephine, my child, I think of your happiness more than any earthly consideration. I have given my consent to your engagement. Kiss me, my Josephine.”
What could she say? What could she do on hearing this sentence pronounced by her father?
He had impressed upon her the kiss of a father. It lay on her forehead and she could feel it there like the seal to a contract. It was his formality that made her feel there was nothing to be said or done further in the matter. When once a contract is sealed no one can do anything. Protest is useless. Submission is taken for granted.
But to come up fresh from the glory of that wheatfield—every ear of grain seemed a unit in the sum of the love which was alive in that field—to come up to town by the side of the man whom she knew that she loved—his hand touching hers now and again—his eyes evermore drawing her own to meet them and to mix with them—his voice still in her heart—to leave him feeling certain of him—certain of the future, and then to hear her father speak that sentence and to feel that cold wax kiss of his on her forehead—oh, the thought of it all was suffocating.
What could she say?
How could she tell her father at that moment that two hours ago she had found out that she loved, not the man who had by some mysterious means won her father’s consent to her name being united with his, but quite another man—a man whom her father had only seen twice, and who had been seen by herself not more than a dozen times, and all within a period of a few weeks.
The surprise was too much for her. The mystery of it all overcame her. She could only stare at her father, while he held her hand and talked to her in a paternal, parliamentary way, patting the back of her fingers very gently.
She felt that his words were in good taste and well chosen. She knew that they could never be otherwise. But how could they ever come to be uttered? That was the question which was humming through her poor head all the while he was assuring her that though perhaps he had had other views in his mind in respect of securing her happiness—other ambitions in regard to her future, still he was content to waive all in order that she might marry the man of her choice.
“Clifton has been perfectly frank with me, my dear,” he said. “Oh, yes, he confessed to me that you and he had an understanding early last autumn that if my consent could be obtained he could count on you. I cannot say that I approve of such secret understandings between young people: an exchange of confidences of this type is almost equivalent to a secret engagement, is it not? But he told me how sensitive you were on this point and how scrupulous you were—I know that he admires you more than ever on account of your scruples—every right thinking man, lover or otherwise, must do so. He too had his scruples—they do him honour also. He was sensible—fully sensible of the fact that we had every right to look higher—much higher for our daughter than our daughter herself thought fit to look. Of course my position in the Government—well, some people have been flattering enough to say that I may look for a place in the Cabinet when the next change takes place, and between ourselves, I think a change is imminent. Never mind that. I know that Clifton is a rising man; he has been a power in our camp for several years past and his advice is esteemed in—I have reason to know—the highest—the very highest quarters. In fact if he had not made himself so very useful as to become almost indispensable he would long ago have been provided with a Seat and a post. He is by no means at the foot of the ladder. He is a man who has made a successful fight against the most adverse influences—he knows his own strength—he still knows it—he does not fritter away his chances, taking up one thing and then dropping it for another. Men of his stamp are the men to succeed. Your future, my child, is, I know, safe in his keeping—oh, quite safe. You have shown your wisdom in your choice. God bless you, my dear, God bless you!”
The paternal kiss was this time impressed upon her forehead with a paternal smile, and she could say nothing. The futility of saying anything was impressed upon her with each of the two paternal kisses. The next moment she was left alone, and her most prominent thought was that he had spoken so convincingly as to leave no opening for any one to say a single word.
