If Cai's thought might be read in his face, he would not have greatly minded _that_, just now.

"In the matter of these letters for instance--"

"I wonder if she ever got 'em?"

"You bet she did. She's been playin' us off, one against t'other, ever since."

"We let our feelin's carry us away."

"We let Peter Benny's feelin's carry us away," 'Bias corrected him.

"That's the worst of these writin' chaps. Before you know where you are they'll harrow you up with feelin's you wasn't aware you entertained.

Now I don't mind confessin' that, afore Benny had started to make out a fair copy I found myself over head an' ears in love with the woman."

"Me too," agreed Cai, musing.

"You're _sure_ you're not any longer?"

"Eh? . . . Of course I am sure. I was only thinkin' how queer it was he should have pumped it out of us, so to say, with the same letters-- almost to a syllable."

"There's two ways o' lookin' at that," said 'Bias thoughtfully.

"You may put it that marryin's as common as dirt. Nine out o' ten indulges in it; and, that bein' so, the same form o' words'll do for everybody, more or less, in proposin' it; just as (when you come to think) the same Marriage Service does for all when they come to the scratch. If all men meant different to all women, there wouldn't be enough dictionary to go round."

Cai shook his head. "I'm the better of it now," he confessed; "but I got to own that, at the moment, though Benny did well enough, there didn't seem enough dictionary to go round."

"I felt something of a rarity myself at the time," owned 'Bias.

"But there's another explanation I like better, though you'll think it far-fetched. . . . You and me--until this happened, there was never a cross word atween us, _nor_ a cross thought?"

"That's so, 'Bias."

"Well, and that bein' so, if Benny hit the note for one, how could it help bein' the note for both? . . . I've had pretty rash thoughts about Benny: but--put it in that way--who's to blame the man? Or the woman, for that matter?"

"I like that explanation better," said Cai.

"--Or the woman? She can't help bein' a two-headed nightingale."

"To be sure she can't. . . . We might leave it at that and say no more about it. She'd be sure to understand in time."

"The agreement was, last night," insisted 'Bias with great firmness, "to put it to her straight and get it over."

They resumed their walk and mounted the pathway over which--from the first angle of the outbuildings to the garden-gate--Banksian roses hung from the wall in heavy honey-coloured cl.u.s.ters of bloom. These were scentless and already past their prime; but by the gate at the south-east end of the house the white Banksian, throwing far wider shoots, saluted them with a scent as of violets belated. And within the gate the old roses were coming on with a rush--Provence and climbing China; Moschata alba, pouring over an arch in a cascade of bloom that hid all its green as with sh.e.l.l-pink foam; crimson and striped Damask along the border; with Paul Neyron eclipsing all in size, moss-roses bursting their gummy sh.e.l.ls, Gloire de Dijon climbing and a.s.serting itself above the falsely named "pink Gloire"; Reine Marie Henriette-- which, grown by everybody, is perhaps the worst rose in the world.

Gloire de Dijon rampant smothered the pretender and covered the most of its mildewing buds from sight; to be conquered in its turn by the sheer beauty of Marechal Niel, whose every yellow star, bold on its stalk as greenhouses can grow it, shamed all feebler yellows. Devoniensis flung its sprays down from the thatch. La France and Ulrich Brunner competed--silver rose against cherry rose--on either side of the porch.

Yet the fragrance of all these roses had to yield to that of the Cottage flowers, mignonette, Sweet-William, lemon verbena, Brompton stocks-- annuals, biennials, perennials, intermixed--that lined the border, with blue delphiniums and white Madonna lilies breaking into flower above them.

Dinah, answering their ring at the bell after the usual delay for reconnaissance, opined that her mistress would probably be found in the new rose-garden. She said it, as they both observed, with a demure, half-mischievous smile.

"Amused to see us in company again, I reckon," said Cai to 'Bias as they went up through the old rose-garden, where the June-flowering H.P.'s ran riot in ma.s.ses of colour from palest pink to deepest crimson.

"Ay," a.s.sented 'Bias, "we'll have to get used to folks smilin', these next few days. . . . Between ourselves, I never fancied that woman, though I couldn' give you any particular reason for it."

"Sly," suggested Cai.

"'Tis more than that. Slyness, you may say, belongs to the whole s.e.x, and I've known men say as they found it agreeable, in moderation."

"I never noticed that in her mistress, to do her justice."

'Bias halted. "Look here. . . . You're _sure_ you ain't weakenin'?"

"Sure."

"Because, as I told 'ee last night--and I'll say it again, here, at the last moment--she's yours, and welcome, if so be--"

"--'If so be as I didn' speak my true mind last night, when I said the same to you '--is that what you mean? Here, let's on and get it over!"

said Cai, mopping his brow anew.

"'Tis a delicate business to broach, as you mentioned just now," said 'Bias dallying. "We'll have to be very careful how we put it."

"Very. As I told 'ee before, if you like to take it over--"

"Not at all. You're spokesman--only we don't want to put it so's she can round on us with 'n.o.body axed you.' And you gave me a turn, just then, by sayin' as you never noticed she was sly; because as I reckon, that's the very point we've come to make."

"As how?"

'Bias stared at him in some perturbation. "Why, didn't she put that trick on us over the investment? And ain't we here to give her back her money? And wasn't it agreed as we'd open on her reproachful-like? an'

then, one thing leadin' to another--"

"Ay, to be sure--I got all that in my mind really." Cai wiped the back of his neck and pocketed his handkerchief with an air of decision--or of desperation. "What you don't seem to know--though with any experience o' speakin' you'd understand well enough--is that close upon the last moment all your thoughts fly, and specially if folks _will_ keep chatterin': but when you stand up and open your mouth--provided as n.o.body interrupts you . . ."

"I declare! If it isn't Captain Hocken--_and_ Captain Hunken with him!"

At the creaking of the small gate, as Cai opened it, Mrs Bosenna had looked up and espied them. She dropped the bundle of raffia, with the help of which she had been staking such of her young shoots as were overlong or weighted down by their heavy blooms, and came forward with a smile of welcome.

"Come in--come in, the both of you! What lovely weather! You'll excuse my not taking off my gloves? We are busy, you see, and some of my new beauties have the most dreadful thorns! . . . By the way"--she glanced over her shoulder, following Cai's incredulous stare. "I believe you know Mr Middlecoat? Yes, yes, of course--I remember!" She laughed and beckoned forward the young farmer, who dropped his occupation among the rosebuds and shuffled forward obediently enough, yet wearing an expression none too gracious.

"'Afternoon, gentlemen," mumbled Farmer Middlecoat, and his sulky tone seemed to show that he had not forgotten previous encounters.

"Won't offer to shake hands. 'Cos why?" He showed the backs of his own, which were lacerated and bleeding. "Caterpillars," added Mr Middlecoat in explanation.

"There now!" cried Mrs Bosenna in accents of genuine dismay. "I'd no idea you were tearin' yourself like that--and so easy to ask Dinah to fetch out a pair o' gloves!"

"Do you mean to say, sir," asked Cai in his simplicity, "that caterpillars bite?"

"No, I don't," answered Mr Middlecoat. "But you can't get at 'em and avoid these pesky thorns."

Said Mrs Bosenna gaily,--"Mr Middlecoat called on me half an hour ago wi' the purpose to make himself disagreeable as usual--though I forget what his excuse was, this time--and I set him to hunt caterpillars."

"Dang it, look at my hands!" growled the young farmer, holding them out.

"And last month, wi' that spell of east wind, 'twas the green-fly.

But I reckon we've mastered the pests by this time. Didn't find many caterpillars, eh?"