seemed to her to express surprise at never having seen her before.
“Yes; but I have been away for two years,” she answered in implied explanation which was certainly not accidental. “I have only just come home.”
She hoped he would question her further; but he did not.
“Good-bye, Mr. Wagram,” putting forth her hand with a bright smile. “I shall return by the main road. It’s much shorter—besides, I’ve had enough adventure for one afternoon.”
“Well, if you won’t reconsider my suggestion.”
“Thanks, no; I had really better get back.”
“And,” he supplemented, “again let me remind you that the utter wreck of your bicycle is our affair. Oh, and by the way—er—in case you are put out by the want of it even for a day or two in this splendid weather, Warren, in Bassingham, keeps very good machines on hire—you understand, our affair of course. I will send him in word the first thing in the morning.”
“Now, Mr. Wagram, you are really too good,” she protested with real warmth. “I don’t know whether I ought even to think of taking you at your word.”
“Ought? But of course you must. It’s a matter, as I said before, of hard, dry law, and damage. Good-bye.”
They had reached the gate by this time, and closing it behind her, Wagram raised his hat and turned back to where lay the dead gnu. Then, as the men he had sent for had arrived, and he had given directions as to the careful preserving of the head, he moved homeward.
The air seemed positively to thrill with the gush of bird-song as the last rays of dazzling gold swept over the vivid greenery, ere the final set of sun. Passing the chapel, a Gothic gem, set in an embowering of foliage, Wagram espied the family chaplain seated in front of his rose-grown cottage, reading.
“Evening, Father,” he called out.
The priest jumped up and came to the gate. He was a man about Wagram’s own age, or a shade older, a cultured man, and possessed of a fund of strong practical common sense, together with a keen sense of humour. The two were great friends.
“Come in, come in, and help a lonely man through a lonely half hour, or as many half-hours as you can spare; though I suppose it’s getting too near your dinner time for that.”
“Why don’t you stroll up with me and join us?” said Wagram, subsiding into a cane chair.
“Thanks, but I can’t to-night, and that for more reasons than one. Now, what’ll you be taking?”
“Nothing, thanks, just now,” answered Wagram, filling his pipe. “I’ve got a mighty unpleasant job sticking out if ever there was one. Went out to knock over a rabbit or two, and knocked over one of the blue wildebeeste instead. How’s that?”
The priest gave a whistle.
“I wouldn’t like to be the man to break the news to the old Squire,” he said, “unless the man happened to be yourself. Did you kill it?”
“Dead as a herring, or rather, the girl did.”
“The girl did! What girl?”
“Why, the one the brute was chevying. Of course I had to get between, don’t you see?”
“I don’t. You omitted the trifling detail that the said brute was chevying anybody. Now, begin at the beginning.”
Wagram laughed. This sort of banter was frequent between the two. The priest reached down for the half-smoked pipe he had let fall, relit it, and listened as Wagram gave him the narrative, concise to baldness.
“Who was the girl?” he said, when Wagram had done.
“That’s just the point. First of all, do you know any people in Bassingham named Calmour?”
“M’yes. That is to say, I know of them.”
“What do they consist of?”
“One parent—male. I believe three daughters. Sons unlimited.”
“What sort of people are they?”
“Ask the old Squire.”
“That’s good enough answer,” laughed Wagram. “You’re not going to give them a bad character, so you won’t give them any. All right. I’ll go and ask him now, and, by Jove,” looking at his watch, “it’s time I did. Good-night.”
Father Gayle returned from the wicket, thinking.
“So that was the girl!” he said to himself. “The eldest, from the description. I hope she won’t make trouble.”
For, as it happened, he had heard rather more about Delia Calmour and her powers of attractiveness than Wagram had; moreover, he knew that men, even those above the average, were very human. Wagram, in his opinion, was very much above the average, yet he did not want to foresee any entanglement or complication that could not but be disastrous—absolutely and irrevocably disastrous.
Chapter Three.
Father and Son.
The exclamation possessive which had escaped Wagram as he contemplated Hilversea Court and its fair and goodly appurtenances, was, as a matter of hard fact, somewhat “previous,” in that these enviable belongings would not be actually and entirely his until the death of his father; an eventuality which he devoutly hoped might be delayed for many and many a long year. Yet, practically, the place might as well have been his own; for since the motor car accident which had, comparatively speaking, recently cut short the life of his elder brother, and he had taken up his quarters at Hilversea, the old Squire had turned over to him the whole management, even to the smallest detail. And he had grown to love the place with a love that was well-nigh ecstatic. Every stick and stone upon it, every leaf and blade of grass seemed different somehow to the like products as existing beyond the boundary; and there were times when the bare consciousness that he was destined to pass the remaining half of his life here, was intoxicating, stupefying—too good indeed to last. It seemed too much happiness for a world whose joys are notoriously fleeting.
While hurriedly dressing for dinner Wagram’s mind reverted to the recent adventure. The old Squire had procured the African antelopes at considerable trouble and expense; in fact, had made a hobby of it. He would certainly not be pleased at the outcome of the said adventure; and the duty of breaking distasteful news to anybody was not a palatable one to himself. And the girl? She seemed a nice enough girl, and unmistakably an attractive one; and at the thought of her Wagram got out a telegraph form and indited a hasty “wire” to the London agency of a well-known cycle firm. Then he went down, a little late, to find his father ready and waiting.
The old Squire was a tall man of very refined appearance, and carried his stature, in spite of his fourscore years, without stoop or bend, and this, with his iron-grey moustache, would cause strangers to set him down as a fine specimen of an old
