"I am very fond of music," said Betty, thinking of the hour's daily struggle with the Mikado and the Moonlight Sonata. "But three arts.

What could the third one be?" Her thoughts played for an instant with unheard-of triumphs achieved behind footlights--rapturous applause, showers of bouquets.

"Whatever it is, you've enormous talent for it," he said; "you'll find out what it is in good time. Perhaps it'll be something much more important than the other two put together, and perhaps you've got even more talent for it than you have for others."

"But there isn't any other talent that I can think of."

"I can think of a few. There's the stage,--but it's not that, I fancy, or not exactly that. There's literature--confess now, don't you write poetry sometimes when you're all alone at night? Then there's the art of being amusing, and the art of being--of being liked."

"Shall I be successful in any of the arts?"

"In one, certainly."

"Ah," said Betty, "if I could only go to Paris!"

"It's not always necessary to go to Paris for success in one's art,"

he said.

"But I want to go. I'm sure I could do better there."

"Aren't you satisfied with your present Master?"

"Oh!"--It was a cry of genuine distress, of heartfelt disclaim. "You _know_ I didn't mean that! But you won't always be here, and when you've gone--why then--"

Again he had to control the involuntary movement of his left arm.

"But I'm not going for months yet. Don't let us cross a bridge till we come to it. Your head-line promises all sorts of wonderful things. And your heart-line--" he turned her hand more fully to the light.

In the Rector's study the labourer was speaking, standing shufflingly on the margin of the Turkey carpet. The Rector listened, his hand on an open folio where fat infants peered through the ornamental initials.

"And so I come straight up to you, Sir, me being a father and you the same, Sir, for all the difference betwixt our ways in life. Says I to myself, says I, and bitter hard I feels it too, I says: 'George,' says I, 'you've got a daughter as begun that way, not a doubt of it--holdin' of hands and sittin' close alongside, and you know what's come to her!'"

The Rector shivered at the implication.

"Then I says, says I: 'Like as not the Rector won't thank you for interferin'. Least said soonest mended,' says I."

"I'm very much obliged to you," said the Rector difficultly, and his hand shook on Ambrosius's yellow page.

"You see, Sir," the man's tone held all that deferent apology that truth telling demands, "gells is gells, be they never so up in the world, all the world over, bless their hearts; and young men is young men, d--n them, asking your pardon, Sir, I'm sure, but the word slipped out. And I shouldn't ha' been easy if anything had have gone wrong with Miss, G.o.d bless her, all along of the want of a word in season. Asking your pardon, Sir, but even young ladies is flesh and blood, when it comes to the point. Ain't they now?" he ended appealingly.

The Rector spoke with an obvious effort, got his hand off the page and closed the folio.

"You've done quite right, George," he said, "and I'm greatly obliged to you. Only I do ask you to keep this to yourself. You wouldn't have liked it if people had heard a thing like that about your Ruby before--I mean when she was at home."

He replaced the two folios on the shelf.

"Not me, Sir," George answered. "I'm mum, I do a.s.sure you, Sir. And if I might make so bold, you just pop on your hat and step acrost directly minute. There's that little hole back of the shed what I told you of. You ain't only got to pop your reverend eye to that there, and you'll see for yourself as I ain't give tongue for no dragged scent."

"Thank you, George," said the Rector, "I will. Good morning. G.o.d bless you."

The formula came glibly, but it was from the lips only that it came.

Lizzie--his white innocent Lily-girl! In a shed--a man, a stranger, holding her hand, his arm around her, his eyes--his lips perhaps, daring--

The Rector was half way down his garden drive.

"Your heart-line," Vernon was saying, "it's a little difficult. You will be deeply beloved."

To have one's fortune told is disquieting. To keep silence during the telling deepens the disquiet curiously. It seemed good to Betty to laugh.

"Soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor," she said, "which am I going to marry, kind gipsy?"

"I don't believe the gipsies who say they can see marriage in a hand,"

he answered gravely, and Betty feared he had thought her flippant, or even vulgar; "what one sees are not the shadows of coming conventions.

One sees the great emotional events, the things that change and mould and develop character. Yes, you will be greatly beloved, and you will love deeply."

"I'm not to be happy in my affairs of the heart then." Still a careful flippancy seemed best to Betty.

"Did I say so? Do you really think that there are no happy love affairs but those that end in a wedding breakfast and bridesmaids, with a Bazaar show of hideous silver and still more hideous crockery, and all one's relations a.s.sembled to dissect one's most sacred secrets?"

Betty had thought so, but it seemed coa.r.s.e to own it.

"Can't you imagine," he went on dreamily, "a love affair so perfect that it could not but lose its finest fragrance if the world were called to watch the plucking of love's flower? Can't you imagine a love so great, so deep, so tender, so absolutely possessing the whole life of the lover that he would almost grudge any manifestation of it?

Because such a manifestation must necessarily be a repet.i.tion of some of the ways in which unworthy loves have been manifested, by less happy lovers? I can seem to see that one might love the one love of a life-time, and be content to hold the treasure in one's heart, a treasure such as no other man ever had, and grudge even a word or a look that might make it less the single perfect rose of the world."

"Oh, dear!" said Betty to herself.

"But I'm talking like a book," he said, and laughed. "I always get dreamy and absurd when I tell fortunes. Anyway, as I said before, you will be greatly beloved. Indeed, unless your hand is very untruthful, which I'm sure it never could be, you are beloved now, far more than you can possibly guess."

Betty caught at her flippancy but it evaded her, and all she found to say was, "Oh," and her eyes fell.

There was a silence. Vernon still held her hand, but he was no longer looking at it.

A black figure darkened the daylight.

The two on the plough started up--started apart. Nothing more was wanted to convince the Rector of all that he least wished to believe.

"Go home, Lizzie," he said, "go to your room," and to her his face looked the face of a fiend. It is hard to control the muscles under a sudden emotion compounded of sorrow, sympathy and an immeasurable pity. "Go to your room and stay there till I send for you."

Betty went, like a beaten dog.

The Rector turned to the young man.

"Now, Sir," he said.

CHAPTER V.