CHAPTER FIVE.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Steele, when he vaulted a stile and came upon her, picking primroses from the hedge. "This is a piece of luck!"

Prudence looked up from her occupation. The sunlight was in her surprised blue eyes, in her hair; it shone on her white dress, and on the pale wilting flowers in her hand. The effect of her was dazzling--a white shining thing of milk and roses against the soft greens of the bank. He had sprung upon her unawares, and it took her a little while to recover from her astonishment. And yet she had been thinking of him--thinking how agreeable it would be if the event which was now realised could only befall. She had been guilty of loitering, of watching the field-path furtively, and wishing she knew which direction he took when he walked abroad. And now he stood before her, gay, and unmistakably pleased, with a laugh in his grey eyes which expressed his satisfaction. He had been thinking about her as she had been thinking of him, and wishing that he had made better use of his time that afternoon, and discovered her favourite haunts. It was all right now; they had found one another. That was good, because on the morrow he was going away.

"You'd never guess how hard I've been wishing I might happen upon you this morning," he said as they shook hands. "It looks as though wishing had brought its reward. I'm rather a believer in telepathy. Something of what has been in my mind must unconsciously have transmitted itself to yours. Have you given me any thought, I wonder? I've given you so many," he added, observing her blush.

"I was thinking of you at the moment you appeared," Prudence answered with audacious candour. "You see, William mentioned at breakfast that you were leaving to-morrow. I wondered why you came? So few people come here--except commercial travellers."

"There are one or two at the hotel," he said, laughing. "Save that they possess enormous appet.i.tes, I haven't observed them particularly. The landlady informed me that they are very exclusive. I came on the firm's business--Morgan Bros. We're woollen too, you know."

"Yes I know. Mr Morgan stays with us sometimes."

She regarded him with renewed interest. It was a little disappointing to discover that he followed the same occupation as William; she had placed him in her thoughts amid more romantic surroundings. The factory, despite its financial magnificence, struck her as rather sordid. He became aware of the criticism in her eyes and smiled in some amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I'm just a paid man," he volunteered. "Nothing very gorgeous about my position."

"But that's an advantage," she said, and smiled in sympathy. "At least, you can leave."

"True. I never thought of it like that. My princ.i.p.al concern has been to evade leaving; it has loomed so very imminent at times. I say, let's sit on this stile in the shade of that jolly elm and talk. You're not in a hurry, are you?"

"No," answered Prudence, who knew that she ought to be at home sewing in the morning-room, knew also that she had not the smallest intention of going back now. "I'm not in any hurry. It's--pleasant here."

"Yes, isn't it? I don't think I have ever seen prettier country than this. You were gathering primroses?"

"Just a few late ones." She held the bunch up and surveyed their drooping beauty. "It's almost a pity; they looked so sweet in the hedge."

"They look sweeter where they are," he said quite sincerely, though obviously without sufficient reason for the comparison; the primroses were so unmistakably dying. "Put one in my b.u.t.ton-hole, will you? It will recall a pleasant morning."

She complied without hesitation, laughing when the task was accomplished because the flower drooped its head.

"A bit shy," he commented. "It is going to raise its face and smile at me when I put it in water, later."

"Will you really do that?" she asked.

"Why, of course. You don't suppose I would allow a gift of yours to fade into a memory?"

"But it will fade," she insisted, "in spite of your efforts. All these pleasant things fade so swiftly."

He turned more directly towards her and looked into her eyes. She had taken off her hat, and sat with her shoulders against the tree and looked steadily back at him.

"Yes," he admitted; "that's uncomfortably true. But something remains."

"Something?" Her eyes questioned him, wide childlike eyes with a hint of womanhood lurking in their blue depths. He drew a little nearer to her.

"Something," he repeated--"subtle, intangible--an emotion, a memory...

Call it what you will... Some recurring brightness which is to the human soul what the sunlight is to the earth--a thousand harmonies spring from the one source. My primrose will fade, but for me it can't die; nor will the kind hand that gathered it and placed it where it is be forgotten either. There are things one doesn't forget."

"I suppose there are," acquiesced Prudence, her thoughts by some odd twist reverting to William's table manners. "Sometimes one would like to forget."

"I shouldn't," he averred--"not this, at least."

She roused herself with a laugh.

"I was thinking of other things--I don't know why--horrid things. Are you one of a large family?"

"No," he answered, surprised. "I'm an only son--and rather a bad investment. Why?"

"There are eight of us," said Prudence--"counting Bobby."

"Who is Bobby?"

"He's a dear," she answered, as though that explained Bobby. "He's at college: when he leaves he will have to go into the factory; and he hates it so. But there isn't any help for it. He is the only Graynor to carry on."

"I don't think his case calls for sympathy exactly," he remarked dryly, with a contemplative eye on the tall red chimneys, an eye that travelled slowly over the wide spring-clad countryside and came back to her face and rested there in quiet enjoyment.

"You don't know," she returned seriously, "how the kind of life we lead here stifles an imaginative person."

"You find it dull?" he said. "I suppose it may be. Most country towns are dull."

"The country isn't to blame," she explained; "it's the routine of dull business, dull duties, dull pleasures, and duller people. You've no idea... How should you know? Virtue, as practised in Wortheton, is a quality without smiles, and enjoyment is sinful. Instead of idling happily here I ought to be at home sewing garments for the poor, like the others are doing. I shall be reproved for flaying truant... and I don't care."

She laughed joyously. Steele, ignoring the larger part of her communications, leaned towards her, intent on bringing her back to a particular phrase that stuck in his memory.

"Are you happy sitting here--with me?" he asked.

"I'm always happy," Prudence replied calmly, "when I've some one to talk to who isn't Wortheton."

"Oh!" he said, a little damped. "So that's it? Well, I'm happy sitting here talking with some one who is Wortheton."

"I'm not up to sample," she said, amused. "If you want local colour, call at the Vicarage--or take William as a specimen. Wortheton is earnest in woof."

She looked so pretty and so impish as she drew her invidious comparisons that Steele was unable to suppress a smile of sympathy. Her criticism of her brother was wanting in loyalty; but he could find in his heart no blame for her: he did not like William, possibly because William had so pointedly refrained from extending further hospitality to him. The young man had counted on an extension, and was disappointed.

"You'll shake the dust off your feet some day," he hazarded, and thought how agreeable it would be to a.s.sist in the escape. Visions of scorching across country in a motor with her beside him floated pleasantly through his brain.

"Some day," she returned a little vaguely, and looked pensively into the distance. "Yes, I'll do that... But it's so difficult to find a way."

"Time will solve that difficulty, I expect," he said.

She glanced towards him brightly, a look of expectant eagerness shining in her eyes. He felt that when the opportunity offered she would not be slow in seizing it, and was unreasonably angry at the thought of his own uncertain prospects, which offered not the faintest hope of his ever being able to hire, much less own, the necessary car in which to scorch across country with anyone.

"You say such nice, encouraging things," she observed. "I hope time won't be long in solving the difficulty. It would be horrid to be forced to live here until I am middle-aged."

"I'm afraid you will be disappointed when you get out into the world,"

he said. "Life is pretty much the same elsewhere as here, I take it.

It is what we make it--largely."

"It is what other people make it for us--largely," she mimicked him. "I could have quite a good time if I was allowed to. When Bobby is home we do contrive a little fun, but it generally ends in disaster. They sent him back to school a week before term commenced once. Agatha managed that. It is always Bobby who reaps the blame; I am punished vicariously."