"I don't think you'll find it very difficult, dear boy," said Lady Mabel, sweetly.

"Difficult to make myself interesting? No, Mab, that has always come easily to me; you and I were never considered much alike," was the impudent answer.

"His desire to have the last word is really quite--lady-like, isn't it?"

said his sister to Mr. Fowler; and all four burst out laughing. "Claud, I am ashamed of you--get up and put down those strawberries. Here is Elsa looking at you in horror and amazement! Do mind your manners."

"As I have devoured my last mouthful, I obey at once. I am like the ancient mariner after telling his story. The feverish desire for strawberries has pa.s.sed from me for a while. I become rational once more."

"Such moments are rare; let us make the most of them," retorted she, "and tell me seriously what your plans are."

"If you'll allow me, I'll walk back with you and Miss Brabourne, and expound them on the way. Oh, look, Mr. Fowler, there's that a.s.s d.i.c.kens; I must go and speak to him a minute, and tell him we're more in the dark than ever."

He rose hurriedly, his nonsense disappearing at once, and went down to the gate, followed by Henry Fowler.

"We can never be grateful enough to your brother, Lady Mabel," said Wyn, gently, when they were out of hearing.

"I am sure he is only too pleased to have had a chance of being of use.

He is as kind a fellow as ever breathed, and hardly ever does himself justice," said Claud's sister, warmly. "He is a real comfort to me, and always has been; so thoughtful and considerate, and never fusses about anything."

"No, he does everything so simply, and as if it were all in the day's work," said Wynifred, as if absently. "It is the kind of nature which would composedly perform an act of wild heroism, and then wonder what all the applause was for."

Lady Mabel looked swiftly at the speaker. It seemed to her that it was the most un-girlish comment on a young man that she had ever heard.

Perhaps the strangeness of it lay more in manner than in words. Wynifred leaned one elbow on the table, her chin rested in her hand; her pale face and tranquil eyes studied Mr. Cranmer, as he stood pulling the gate to and fro, and eagerly talking to the detective. Her expression was that of cool, critical attention. Something in Lady Mabel's surprised silence seemed to strike on her sensitive nerves. She looked hurriedly up, and colored warmly.

"I beg your pardon," she said, confusedly, "I am afraid I am blundering" ... and then broke short off, and pushed back her chair from the table. "We have a bad habit at home," she said, "of studying real people as if they were characters in fiction; but we don't, as a rule, forget ourselves so far as to discuss them with their own relations."

Lady Mabel smiled; it was a pretty and an adequate apology. She thought Miss Allonby an interesting girl, and was inspired with a desire to see more of her.

"You must come and see me when I am settled in London, Miss Allonby,"

she said, kindly, "I should like to know your sisters."

"I should like you to know them," was the eager response. "Osmond and I are very proud of them."

"They are both younger than you?"

"Yes; Hilda is three years younger, and Jacqueline four. There is only just a year between them."

"And you are orphans?"

"Yes."

At this moment Claud approached.

"Miss Allonby," he said, "I wonder if you would get your brother's permission for Mr. d.i.c.kens to rifle the things he left behind him at the 'Fountain Head'with Mrs. Clapp?"

"Oh, certainly, I am sure he would have no objection. Perhaps I had better come myself," said Wynifred. "I have been wanting to fetch up some paints."

"It would be far the best plan," said Claud, with alacrity. "I am going to walk down with my sister and Miss Brabourne. Will you come to? I will see you safely home again."

"You are very kind," she answered, simply. "I will go and tell Osmond, and see whether nurse has given him his tea."

"We shall have to set out soon," said Lady Mabel, "or we shall be late for tea at Edge Willoughby."

"The amount of meals one can get through in this climate!" observed Claud, pensively. "Why, you have this moment finished one tea, Mab,--I'm ashamed of you! Mr. Fowler, how many meals a day am I to have at the Lower House?"

"Oh, I think I can promise you as many as you can eat, without taxing my cook or my larder too far. We are used to appet.i.tes here."

"A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," mused Mr. Cranmer. "The fact that King Henry died of a surfeit used to impress me, I remember, with an unfavorable view of that monarch's character. But"--he heaved a sigh, and, with a side-glance of fun at Elsa, took another strawberry--"_nous avons change tout cela_! _Vive_ Devonshire and the Devon air!"

CHAPTER XVI.

We read, or talked, or quarrelled, as it chanced.

We were not lovers, nor even friends well-matched: Say rather, scholars upon different tracks, Or thinkers disagreed.

AURORA LEIGH.

With his usual forethought, Mr. Cranmer had made out in his own mind a plan of the coming walk. He meant to walk from Poole to Edge with Elsa Brabourne, the anachronism, and return from Edge to Poole with Wynifred Allonby, one of the latest developments of her century.

He felt that there must needs be a piquancy about the contrast which the dialogue in these two walks would necessarily present. No doubt one great cause of his happy, contented nature was this faculty for amusing himself, and at once becoming interested in whatever turned up.

It is scarcely a common quality among the English upper cla.s.ses, who mostly seem to expect that the mountain will come to Mahomet as a matter of course, and so remain "orbed in their isolation," and, as a natural consequence, not very well entertained by life in general. It was this trait in Claud which drew him and his eccentric sister together. She was every bit as ready as he to explore all the obscure social developments of her day. Anything approaching eccentricity was a pa.s.sport to her favor, as to his; and these valley people had taken strong hold on the fancy of both.

He was standing just outside the door, when Wynifred came down ready for her walk, and he noted approvingly that the London girl was equipped for country walking in the matter of thick shoes, stout stick, and shady hat. On the shoes he bestowed a special mental note of approval. Lady Mabel had once said that she believed the first thing Claud noticed in a woman was her feet. Miss Allonby was intensely unconscious that her own were at this moment pa.s.sing the ordeal of judgment from such a critic, and pa.s.sing it favorably.

"Osmond is very quiet and comfortable, and nurse thinks I can well be spared," she announced.

"I must reluctantly bid you all good-bye for the present," said Mr.

Fowler, regretfully. "I am obliged to go on to visit a farm up this way.

I wish you a pleasant walk."

He raised his hat with a smile, and stood watching as they started. Lady Mabel, urged on by her active disposition, went first, and Wynifred went with her. Claud dropped behind with Elaine, and this was the order of the march all the way to the village. Mr. Cranmer was resolved to make Elsa talk, and he began accordingly with the firm determination that nothing should baulk him, and that he would not be discouraged by monosyllables. It was well that this resolution was strong, for it was severely tried.

The first subject he essayed was the beauty of the scenery, and the joy of living in the midst of such a fine landscape. He could have waxed eloquent on this theme, and shown his listener how much happier are the dwellers in rural seclusion than they who exist in towns, and how it really is a fact that the dispositions of those born among mountains are freer and n.o.bler than those of denizens of flat ground--with much more of the same kind. But he soon became aware that he spoke to deaf ears.

The girl beside him was not interested: he could not even keep her attention. Her feet lagged, her head seemed constantly turning, without her volition, back towards the direction of Poole Farm.

"But perhaps you don't share my enthusiasm for the country?" he broke off suddenly, with great politeness.

Elsa grew red, stretched out her hand for a tendril from the hedge, and answered, confusedly:

"I hate living in the country!"

There was a note in her young voice of a defiance compelled hitherto to be mute, and consequently of surprising force. The very fact of having broken silence at last seemed to give her courage; after a minute's excited pause, she went on:

"I want people--I want companions. I want to be in a great city, all full of life! I want to hear people talk, and know what they think, and find out all about them. Do you know that I have never met a girl in my life till I saw Miss Allonby! And--and--" with voice choked with shame--"I am afraid to speak to her. I don't know what to say. I should show her my ignorance directly. Oh, you can't think how ignorant I am! I know nothing--absolutely nothing. And I do so long to."