Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/357

Rh “Oh, dear,” she laughed, with a little mowe, “Freddy is such an ass, and Louie Denys is like a wasp at treacle. I wanted to laugh, yet I felt just a tiny hit cross. Don’t you feel great when you go mowing like that? Father Timey sort of feeling? Shall we go and look! We’ll say we want those foxgloves he’ll be cutting down directly—and those bell flowers. I suppose you needn’t go on with your labours——”

He did not know we were approaching till I called him, then he started slightly as he saw the tall, proud girl.

“Mr. Saxton—Miss D’Arcy,” I said, and he shook hands with her. Immediately his manner became ironic, for he had seen his hand big and coarse and inflamed with the snaith clasping the lady’s hand.

“We thought you looked so fine,” she said to him, “and men are so embarrassing when they make love to somebody else—aren’t they? Save us those foxgloves, will you—they are splendid—like savage soldiers drawn up against the hedge—don’t cut them down—and those campanulas—bell-flowers, ah, yes! They are spinning idylls up there. I don’t care for idylls, do you? Oh, you don’t know what a classical pastoral person you are—but there, I don’t suppose you suffer from idyllic love——” she laughed, “—one doesn’t see the silly little god fluttering about in our hayfields, does one? Do you find much time to sport with Amaryllis in the shade?—I’m sure it’s a shame they banished Phyllis from the fields——”

He laughed and went on with his work. She smiled a little, too, thinking she had made a great