"This, you see," said he, "is the main entrance--fifteen steps. But won't you sit down? You will see better. And this wing is where the drawing-rooms are to be," he added, when she had seated herself, and he had taken a chair beside her. "There are three large rooms in a line, that can all be thrown together on occasions--when necessary. I have not decided about the furniture yet, nor the colours of the walls. You must help me with those things presently. The dados, which are being designed at home, are to be of carved wood, most of them; mantelpieces to match.

Some of the dados will be of inlaid stone, tiles, and that sort of thing. I suppose you don't know what a dado is, do you?"

"No," said Rachel, meekly. Whereupon he entered into elaborate explanations.

"I think I should not like tiles on the wall," she ventured to remark; "they would feel very cold, wouldn't they?"

"They tell me tile is the proper thing," he replied; "and of course I want to have everything that is proper. But whatever my--my wife wishes shall be law, of course. In her own rooms, at any rate, she shall consult her own taste entirely."

Rachel stared at him, coloured and laughed. "Oh, you did not tell me about your wife before," she said. "I did not know you were engaged to be married. That is why you are making haste to build your house? I am very glad. I congratulate you."

"Do not; do not," he stammered earnestly. "I speak of a possible wife, because I hope to have a wife some day. I am not engaged. I wish I were."

"Oh!" she said, looking down bashfully, with oleander blossoms everywhere. "I beg your pardon."

"I wish I were," he repeated. "But I am going to get ready for that happy time against it does come. See, these are to be her rooms. They face the south, and I am going to have a rose garden below them. This is to be her boudoir. I thought of having the walls and the ceiling painted in coral. I have noticed that pink lights in a room are very becoming to a lady's complexion, rather pale on the walls, for the sake of the pictures. You said you liked plenty of pictures?"

"I? Oh, yes, I like pictures."

"And I did mean to have a dado of very fine, rich tiles to make a foundation of colour, you know; but you don't like tiles?"

"Oh, but _I_ don't know anything about it, Mr. Kingston! You had better do what you said--furnish the other rooms, and leave your wife, when you get one, to choose the decorations of her own herself."

"She _shall_ choose them herself. But, Miss Fetherstonhaugh--"

"Rachel, my dear, your habit has come," said Mrs. Hardy, appearing at this interesting moment. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Kingston? Pray forgive me for leaving you so long. I hope you have come to lunch? Oh, yes, you must stay to lunch, of course. We'll take you into town afterwards, when we go out to drive."

Mr. Kingston stayed to lunch, and made himself very agreeable. But then he went into town by himself, and returned in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time in riding costume, mounted on a powerful brown horse. During his absence, Rachel had put on her habit, and found that it fitted her beautifully; and Black Agnes had been caparisoned, and was pawing the gravel before the hall door. Mrs. Reade, magnificently attired for a series of state calls, had appeared upon the scene, and was regulating all these pleasant circ.u.mstances.

"Now then, Mr. Kingston, you must only take her along quiet roads. And she is not to jump any fences when Ned is not with her."

"Why, Ned?" inquired Mr. Kingston. "I am as learned in fences as Ned, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes, I know all about that. But it is the look of the thing. You remember, Rachel, you are not to jump fences."

"No, Beatrice, I won't."

"Have a good gallop, my dear, and enjoy it," the little woman added.

"I'll take care of mamma; and when we have done all our calls we will come and meet you."

Mr. Kingston stepped jauntily to Black Agnes's side. He was an old steeplechase rider before he was a successful city merchant, and he looked ten years younger in his riding-dress. Rachel, with a radiant face, approached him, and laid her small foot on his proffered palm.

In a moment she was up like a feather, and sitting square and light in her saddle like a practised horsewoman as she was; and all her attendants, groom included, looked up at her admiringly. Even Mrs. Hardy forgot the expense she had been put to.

"The child certainly does look well on horseback," she remarked, resignedly, as Black Agnes's shining haunches disappeared round a clump of laurels. "What a figure she has, Beatrice!"

"Oh, dear me, yes!" a.s.sented the younger matron pettishly. "Why didn't _we_ have figures like that!"

Meanwhile, the black mare and the big brown horse paced out into the road, and for a little while the riders contented themselves with friendly glances at one another. Rachel was crimson with pride and bashfulness, looking lovely and riding beautifully, as she could not but know she was. Mr. Kingston, sharing some measure of her elation and excitement, was absorbed in looking at and admiring her.

By and bye they had a long canter, which carried them well out into the country, where there were no houses and no people, and where the shadows were beginning to rest on the peaceful autumn landscape. And then Mr.

Kingston made her draw rein under a clump of trees, while she looked back at the city they had left behind, glorified in the light of the sinking sun.

"So now there is something else you like besides operas and b.a.l.l.s?" he said, laying his hand upon the black mare's silky mane.

"Yes," she replied, drawing a long breath, "and I think this is best of all! She is like a swallow--she seems to skim the ground! And I--I don't know when I have felt so happy!"

All his years and his experience went for nothing under these circ.u.mstances, when she looked as sweet as she did now.

"You must keep Black Agnes," he said eagerly. "I will speak to your uncle. I will not have you riding low-bred brutes. Nothing but the best is fit for you; you, who know how to ride so well, and enjoy it so much!

You will keep her, to please me?"

If she had been sitting in a green satin drawing-room she would probably have checked this ardent outburst at an apparently harmless stage. She would have blushed, and looked grave and majestic; but now she was, in a sense, intoxicated. She lifted a pair of radiant, grateful eyes to his face, and she held out her hand impulsively.

"How good you are to me!" she said. "How much pleasure you give me!"

And then, of course, he succ.u.mbed altogether.

"That is what I want to do, not now, but always," he said, drawing the mare's head to his knee, and the small, weak hand to his lips, which had kissed so many hands, though never with quite the same kind of kiss.

"That is why I am building my house. It is you I wanted to be its mistress--didn't you know that?--to do just what you like with it, and with me, and with all I have!" And, when once he had fairly set it going, the flood of his eloquence, running in a well-channelled groove, flowed freely, and overwhelmed the poor little novice, who had never been made love to before.

"I--we--we have only seen each other a few times," she ventured to suggest at last, but not until her imagination had been captivated by the splendid prospect before her. She had the colour of a peony in her cheeks, and frightened tears in her soft child's eyes; but her experienced lover knew that his cause was gained.

"That has been enough for me," he said. "Once was enough for me." Then, after a long pause, "Well? Is it to be 'yes' or 'no?'"

"Oh, I don't know!" she stammered desperately, turning her head from side to side. "I have had no time. Let us wait until we know each other better."

"_I_ know quite enough," he persisted, "and I am not so young as you are that I can afford to wait."

She trembled and panted, gathering up her reins and dropping them in an agony of embarra.s.sment.

"Oh," she said at last, "what can I say? Won't you let me speak to Aunt Elizabeth?"

"Of course, as soon as you like after you get home. I am not afraid of Aunt Elizabeth. I know what _she_ will say. But now, dear--while we are here by ourselves--I want you to tell me, of your own self, whether you like me--whether you would really like to come and live with me in my new house? You don't want anybody to help you to make up your mind about that?"

"No," she whispered, hanging her head, feeling at once terrified and elated, and wishing to goodness she could see Mrs. Hardy and Beatrice driving along the lonely empty road.

"You _would_ like it? Turn your face to me and say 'Yes,' just once, and I won't bother you any more."

She turned her face, scarlet all over her ears and all down her throat, and she tried to meet his ardent eyes and could not. Her lips shaped themselves to say "Yes," but no sound would come. However, sound would have been, perhaps, less expressive than the silence which overwhelmed her in this proud but dreadful moment. At any rate, Mr. Kingston was satisfied.

CHAPTER V.

SO SOON!