"Dear, I will do what you like!" he said. "Tell me--what is your wish?"
She waited a moment, till she had controlled herself a little.
"I thought"--she said, then--"that we might tell Dad just for to-night that we are engaged--it would make him happy--and perhaps in a week or two we might get up a quarrel together and break it off--"
Robin smiled.
"Dear little girl!--I"m afraid the plan wouldn"t work! He wants the banns put up on Sunday--and this is Wednesday."
Her brows knitted perplexedly.
"Something can be managed before then," she said. "Robin, I cannot bear to disappoint him! He"s old--and he"s so ill too!--it wouldn"t hurt us for one night to say we are engaged!"
"All right!"--and Robin threw back his head and laughed joyously--"I don"t mind! The sensation of even imagining I"m engaged to you is quite agreeable! For one evening, at least, I can a.s.sume a sort of proprietorship over you! Innocent! I--I--"
He looked so mirthful and mischievous that she smiled, though the teardrops still sparkled on her lashes.
"Well? What are you thinking of now?" she asked.
"I think--I really think--under the circ.u.mstances I ought to kiss you!"
he said--"Don"t you feel it would be right and proper? Even on the stage the hero and heroine ACT a kiss when they"re engaged!"
She met his laughing glance with quiet steadfastness.
"I cannot act a kiss," she said--"You can, if you like! I don"t mind."
"You don"t mind?"
"No."
He looked from right to left--the apple-boughs, loaded with rosy fruit, were intertwined above them like a canopy--the sinking sun made mellow gold of all the air, and touched the girl"s small figure with a delicate luminance--his heart beat, and for a second his senses swam in a giddy whirl of longing and ecstasy--then he suddenly pulled himself together.
"Dear Innocent, I wouldn"t kiss you for the world!" he said, gently--"It would be taking a mean advantage of you. I only spoke in fun. There!--dry your pretty eyes!--you sweet, strange, romantic little soul! You shall have it all your own way!"
She drew a long breath of evident relief.
"Then you"ll tell your uncle--"
"Anything you like!" he answered. "By-the-bye, oughtn"t he to be home by this time?"
"He may have been kept by some business," she said--"He won"t be long now. You"ll say we"re engaged?"
"Yes."
"And perhaps"--went on Innocent--"you might ask him not to have the banns put up yet as we don"t want it known quite so soon--"
"I"ll do all I can," he replied, cheerily--"all I can to keep him quiet, and to make you happy! There! I can"t say more!"
Her eyes shone upon him with a grateful tenderness.
"You are very good, Robin!"
He laughed.
"Good! Not I! But I can"t bear to see you fret--if I had my way you should never know a moment"s trouble that I could keep from you. But I know I"m not a patch on your old stone knight who wrote such a lot about his "ideal"--and yet went and married a country wench and had six children. Don"t frown, dear! Nothing will make me say he was romantic!
Not a bit of it! He wrote a lot of romantic things, of course--but he didn"t mean half of them!--I"m sure he didn"t!"
She coloured indignantly.
"You say that because you know nothing about it," she said--"You have not read his writings."
"No--and I"m not sure that I want to," he answered, gaily. "Dear Innocent, you must remember that I was at Oxford--my dear old father and mother sc.r.a.ped and screwed every penny they could get to send me there--and I believe I acquitted myself pretty well--but one of the best things I learned was the general uselessness and vanity of the fellows that called themselves "literary." They chiefly went in for disparaging and despising everyone who did not agree with them and think just as they did. Mulish prigs, most of them!" and Robin laughed his gay and buoyant laugh once more--"They didn"t know that I was all the time comparing them with the honest type of farmer--the man who lives an outdoor life with G.o.d"s air blowing upon him, and the soil turned freshly beneath him!--I love books, too, in my way, but I love Nature better."
"And do not poets help you to understand Nature?" asked Innocent.
"The best of them do--such as Shakespeare and Keats and Tennyson,--but they were of the past. The modern men make you almost despise Nature,--more"s the pity! They are always studying THEMSELVES, and a.n.a.lysing THEMSELVES, and pitying THEMSELVES--now _I_ always say, the less of one"s self the better, in order to understand other people."
Innocent"s eyes regarded him with quiet admiration.
"Yes, you are a thoroughly good boy," she said--"I have told you so often. But--I"m not sure that I should always get on with anyone as good as you are!"
She turned away then, and moved towards the house. As she went, she suddenly stopped and clapped her hands, calling:
"Cupid! Cupid! Cu-COO-pid!"
A flash of white wings glimmered in the sunset-light, and her pet dove flew to her, circling round and round till it dropped on her outstretched arm. She caught it to her bosom, kissing its soft head tenderly, and murmuring playful words to it. Robin watched her, as with this favourite bird-playmate she disappeared across the garden and into the house. Then he gave a gesture half of despair, half of resignation--and left the orchard.
The sun sank, and the evening shadows began to steal slowly in their long darkening lines over the quiet fields, and yet Farmer Jocelyn had not yet returned. The women of the household grew anxious--Priscilla went to the door many times, looking up the tortuous by-road for the first glimpse of the expected returning vehicle--and Innocent stood in the garden near the porch, as watchful as a sentinel and as silent. At last the sound of trotting hoofs was heard in the far distance, and Robin, suddenly making his appearance from the stable-yard where he too had been waiting, called cheerily,--
"Uncle at last! Here he comes!"
Another few minutes and the mare"s head turned the corner--then the whole dog-cart came into view with Farmer Jocelyn driving it. But he was quite alone.
Robin and Innocent exchanged surprised glances, but had no time to make any comment as old Hugo just then drove up and, throwing the reins to his nephew, alighted.
"Aren"t you very late, Dad?" said Innocent then, going to meet him--"I was beginning to be quite anxious!"
"Were you? Poor little one! I"m all right! I had business--I was kept longer than I expected--" Here he turned quickly to Robin--"Unharness, boy!--unharness!--and come in to supper!"
"Where"s Landon?" asked Robin.
"Landon? Oh, I"ve left him in the town."
He pulled off his driving-gloves, and unb.u.t.toned his overcoat--then strode into the house. Innocent followed him--she was puzzled by his look and manner, and her heart beat with a vague sense of fear. There was something about the old man that was new and strange to her. She could not define it, but it filled her mind with a curious and inexplicable uneasiness. Priscilla, who was setting the dishes on the table in the room where the cloth was laid for supper, had the same uncomfortable impression when she saw him enter. His face was unusually pale and drawn, and the slight stoop of age in his otherwise upright figure seemed more p.r.o.nounced than usual. He drew up his chair to the table and sat down,--then ruffling his fine white hair over his brow with one hand, looked round him with an evidently forced smile.
"Anxious about me, were you, child?" he said, as Innocent took her place beside him. "Well, well! you need not have given me a thought!
I--I was all right--all right! I made a bit of a bargain in the town--but the prices were high--and Landon--"