Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/14

Rh The naiveté of her words touched him again.

"Come," he said, "let's get away from the crowd and explore. Do you know your way about?"

"I'm staying here," she said. "Come and see the ruins. Oh, they're not real ruins, but Lord Hendon thought they'd look pretty. And they do. I shouldn't like antiquarians and people like that to hear me say so; but they do, especially now the ivy's growing so nicely. Come and look."

They moved off. It was the happiest moment she had ever known.

Later in the day Miss Antrobus and Mrs. Rochester found themselves together on the slope of the beech wood. There is a wooden seat here from which you look out across the Kentish valley to the blue of the hills beyond. Away to the right was the house, its lawns gay with the many-coloured patchwork of the guests.

"Well, dear?" said the elder woman; her voice was both very gentle and very alert.

"Well?" said the girl awkwardly.

"He's been paying you a good deal of attention, hasn't he? You seem to have been a good deal together."

"He has been very kind," said Miss Antrobus, and put her gloved fingers to her burning cheeks. "Dear Mrs. Rochester—I feel so ashamed, I wish you'd never founds it out."

"Why should you be ashamed?" purred Mrs. Rochester suavely. "I can only be proud that you care for my boy. And I know he likes you very much. And he has never cared for anyone else."

"You haven't said anything to him about it?" the heiress asked with quick suspicion.

"My darling girl! As if I should," the mother answered earnestly. "He's very . . . well, not exactly shy—and modest isn't exactly the word either. I mean he's not vain—he's not the sort of man who would think he could carry all before him; not one of our conquerors, you know. He'll need encouraging. No—I don't mean exactly that, but I