She considered for a moment, then she said:

"I do not think you will offend me. What was it?"

"Well, I was thinking that--see here, now, Miss Heron, I've got your promise!--it is not worthy of you--such work, I mean."

"Because I'm a girl?" she said, her lip curving with a smile.

"No," he said, gravely; "because you are a lady; because you are so--so refined, so graceful, so"--he dared not say "beautiful," and consequently he floundered and broke down. "If you were a farmer's daughter, clumsy and rough and awkward, it would not seem to inappropriate for you to be herding cattle and counting sheep; but--now your promise!--when I come to think that ever since I met you, whenever I think of you I think of--of--a beautiful flower--that now I have seen you in evening-dress, I realise how wrong it is that you should do such work. Oh, dash it! I know it's like my cheek to talk to you like this," he wound up, abruptly and desperately.

While he had been speaking, the effect of his words had expressed itself in her eyes and in the alternating colour and pallor of her face. It was the first time in her life any man had told her that she was refined and graceful and flower-like; that she was, so to speak, wasting her sweetness on the desert air, and the speech was both pleasant and painful to her. The long dark lashes swept her cheek; her lips set tightly to repress the quiver which threatened them; but when he had completely broken down, she raised her eyes to his with a look so grave, so sweet, so girlish, that Stafford's heart leapt, not for the first time that morning, and there flashed through him the unexpected thought:

"What would not a man give to have those eyes turned upon him with love shining in their depths!"

"I'm not offended," she said. "I know what you mean. None of your lady-friends would do it because they are ladies. I'm sorry. But they are not placed as I am. Do you think I could sit with my hands before me, or do fancy-work, while things went to ruin? My father is old and feeble--you saw him the other night--I have no brother--no one to help me, and--so you see how it is!"

The eyes rested on his with a proud smile, as if she were challenging him, then she went on:

"And it does not matter. I live quite alone; I see no one, no other lady; there is no one to be ashamed of me."

Stafford reddened.

"That's rather a hard hit for me!" he said. "Ashamed! By Heaven! if you knew how I admired--how amazed I am at your pluck and goodness--"

Her eyes dropped before his glowing ones.

"And there is no need to pity me: I am quite happy, quite; happier than I should be if I were playing the piano or paying visits all day. It has quite left off now."

Half unconsciously he put his hand on her arm pleadingly, and with the firm, masterful touch of the man.

"Will you wait one more moment?" he said, in his deep, musical voice.

She paused and looked at him enquiringly. "You said just now that you had no brother, no one to help you. Will you let me help you? will you let me stand in the place of a friend, of a brother?"

She looked at him with frank surprise; and most men would have been embarra.s.sed and confused by the steady, astonished regard of the violet eyes; but Stafford was too eager to get her consent to care for the amus.e.m.e.nt that was mixed with the expression of surprise.

"Why--how could you help me?" she said at last; "even if--"

--"You'd let me," he finished for her. "Well, I'm not particularly clever, but I've got sense enough to count sheep and drive cows; and I can break in colts, train dogs, and, if I'm obliged, I daresay I could drive a plough."

Her eyes wandered thoughtfully, abstractedly down the dale; but she was listening and thinking.

"Of course I should have a lot to learn, but I'm rather quick at picking up things, and--"

"Are you joking, Mr. Orme?" she broke in.

"Joking? I was never more serious in my life," he said, eagerly, and yet with an attempt to conceal his earnestness. "I am asking it as a favour, I am indeed! I shall be here for weeks, months, perhaps, and I should be bored to death--"

"With your father's house full of visitors?" she put in, softly, and with a smile breaking through her gravity.

"Oh, they'll amuse themselves," he said. "At any rate, I sha'n't be with them all day; and I'd ever so much rather help you than dance attendance on them."

She pushed the short silky curls from her temples, and shook her head.

"Of course it's ridiculous," she said, with a girlish laugh; "and it's impossible, too."

"Oh, is it?" he retorted. "I've never yet found anything I wanted to do impossible."

"You always have your own way?" she asked.

"By hook or by crook," he replied.

"But why do you want to--help me?" she asked. "Do you think you would find it amusing? You wouldn't." The laughter shone in her eyes again.

"You would soon grow tired of it. It is not like hunting or fishing or golfing; it's work that tries the temper--I never knew what a fiendish temper I had got about me until the first time I had to drive a cow and calf."

"My temper couldn't be worse," he remarked, calmly. "Howard says that sometimes I could give points to the man possessed with seven devils."

"Who is Mr. Howard?" she asked.

"My own particular chum," he said. "He came down with me and is up at the house now. But never mind Howard; are you going to let me help you as if I were an old friend or a--brother? Or are you going to be unkind enough to refuse?"

She began to feel driven, and her brows knit as she said:

"I think you are very--obstinate, Mr. Orme."

"That describes me exactly," he said, cheerfully. "I'm a perfect mule when I like, and I'm liking it all I know at this moment."

"It's absurd--it's ridiculous, as I said," she murmured, half angrily, half laughingly, "and I can't think why you offered, why you want to--to help me!"

"Never mind!" said Stafford, his heart beating with antic.i.p.atory triumph; for he knew that the woman who hesitates is gained. "Perhaps I want to get some lessons in farming on the cheap, or--"

--"Perhaps you really want to help the poor girl who, though she is a lady, has to do the work of a farmer's daughter," she said, in a low voice. "Oh, it is very kind of you, but--"

"Then I'll come over to-morrow an hour earlier than this, and you shall show me how to count the sheep, or whatever you do with them," he put in, quickly.

"But I was going to refuse--very gratefully, of course--but to refuse!"

"You couldn't; you couldn't be so unkind! I'll ride a hunter I've got; he's rather stiffer than Adonis, and better up to rough work. I will come to the stream where we first met and wait for you--shall I?"

He said all this as if the matter were settled; and with the sensation of being driven still more strongly upon her, she raised her eyes to his with a yielding expression in them, with that touch of imploration which lurks in a woman's eyes and about the corners of her lips when for the first time she surrenders her will to a man.

"I do not know what to say. It is absurd--it is--wrong. I don't understand why--. Ah, well," she sighed with an air of relief, "you will tire of it very quickly--after a few hours--"

"All right. We'll leave it at that," he said, with an exasperating air of cheerful confidence. "It is a bargain, Miss Heron. Shall we shake hands on it?"

He held out his hand with the smile which few men, and still fewer women, could resist; and she tried to smile in response; but as his strong hand closed over her small one, a faint look of doubt, almost of trouble, was palpable in her violet eyes and on her lips. She drew her hand away--and it had to be drawn, for he released it only slowly and reluctantly--and without a word she left the shed.

Stafford watched her as she went lightly and quickly up the road towards the Hall, Bess and Donald leaping round her; then, with a sharp feeling of elation, a feeling that was as novel as it was confusing, he sprang on his horse, and putting him to a gallop, rode for home, with one thought standing clearly out: that before many hours--the next morning--he should see her again.

Once he shifted his whip to his left hand, and stretching out his right hand, looked at it curiously: it seemed to be still thrilling with the contact of her small, warm palm.