The Rectory garden at Merefield was, obviously, this summer, the proper place to spend most of the day. Certainly the house was cool—it was one of those long, low, creeper-covered places that somehow suggest William IV. and crinolines (if it is a fact that those two institutions flourished together, as I think), with large, darkish rooms and wide, low staircases and tranquil-looking windows through which roses peep; but the shadow of the limes and the yews was cooler still. A table stood almost permanently through those long, hot summer days in the place where Dick had sat with Jenny, and here the Rector and his daughter breakfasted, lunched and dined, day after day, for a really extraordinarily long period.

Jenny herself lived in the garden even more than her father; she got through the household business as quickly as possible after breakfast, and came out to do any small businesses that she could during the rest of the morning. She wrote a few letters, read a few books, sewed a little, and, on the whole, presented a very domestic and amiable picture. She visited poor people for an hour or so two or three days a week, and occasionally, when Lord Talgarth was well enough, rode out with him and her father after tea, through the woods, and sometimes with Lord Talgarth alone.

She suffered practically no pangs of conscience at all on the subject of Frank. Her letter had been perfectly sincere, and she believed herself to have been exceedingly sensible. (It is, perhaps, one may observe, one of the most dangerous things in the world to think oneself sensible; it is even more dangerous than to be told so.) For the worst of it all was that she was quite right. It was quite plain that she and Frank were not suited to one another; that she had looked upon that particular quality in him which burst out in the bread-and-butter incident, the leaving of Cambridge, the going to prison, and so forth, as accidental to his character, whereas it was essential. It was also quite certain that it was the apotheosis of common-sense for her to recognize that, to say so, and to break off the engagement.

Of course, she had moments of what I should call "grace," and she would call insanity, when she wondered for a little while whether to be sensible was the highest thing in life; but her general attitude to these was as it would be towards temptation of any other kind. To be sensible, she would say, was to be successful and effective; to be otherwise was to fail and to be ineffective.

Very well, then.

At the beginning of September Dick Guiseley came to Merefield to shoot grouse. The grouse, as I think I have already remarked, were backward this year, and, after a kind of ceremonial opening, to give warning as it were, on the twelfth of August, they were left in peace. Business was to begin on the third, and on the evening of the second Dick arrived.

He opened upon the subject that chiefly occupied his thoughts just now with Archie that night when Lord Talgarth had gone to bed. They were sitting in the smoking-room, with the outer door well open to admit the warm evening air. They had discussed the prospects of grouse next day with all proper solemnity, and Archie had enumerated the people who were to form their party. The Rector was coming to shoot, and Jenny was to ride out and join them at lunch.

Then Archie yawned largely, finished his drink, and took up his candle.

"Oh! she's coming, is she?" said Dick meditatively.

Archie struck a match.

"How's Frank?" went on Dick.

"Haven't heard from him."

"Where is the poor devil?"

"Haven't an idea."

Dick emitted a monosyllabic laugh.

"And how's she behaving?"

"Jenny? Oh! just as usual. She's a sensible girl and knows her mind."

Dick pondered this an instant.

"I'm going to bed," said Archie. "Got to have a straight eye to-morrow."

"Oh! sit down a second.... I want to talk."

Archie, as a compromise, propped himself against the back of a chair.

"She doesn't regret it, then?" pursued Dick.

"Not she," said Archie. "It would never have done."

"I know," agreed Dick warmly. (It was a real pleasure to him that head and heart went together in this matter.) "But sometimes, you know, women regret that sort of thing. Wish they hadn't been quite so sensible, you know."

"Jenny doesn't," said Archie.

Dick took up his glass which he had filled with his third whisky-and-soda, hardly five minutes before, and drank half of it. He sucked his mustache, and in that instant confidentialism rose in his heart.

"Well, I'm going to have a shot myself," he said.

"What?"

"I'm going to have a shot. She can but say 'No.'"

Archie's extreme repose of manner vanished for a second. His jaw dropped a little.

"But, good Lord! I hadn't the faintest—"

"I know you hadn't. But I've had it for a long time.... What d'you think, Archie?"

"My good chap—"

"Yes, I know; leave all that out. We'll take that as read. What comes next?"

Archie looked at him a moment.

"How d'you mean? Do you mean, do I approve?"

"Well, I didn't mean that," admitted Dick. "I meant, how'd I better set about it?"

Archie's face froze ever so slightly. (It will be remembered that Jack Kirkby considered him pompous.)

"You must do it your own way," he said.

"Sorry, old man," said Dick. "Didn't mean to be rude."

Archie straightened himself from the chair-back.

"It's all rather surprising," he said. "It never entered my head. I must think about it. Good-night. Put the lights out when you come."

"Archie, old man, are you annoyed?"

"No, no; that's all right," said Archie.

And really and truly that was all that passed between these two that night on the subject of Jenny—so reposeful were they.

(II)

There was a glorious breeze blowing over the hills as Jenny rode slowly up about noon next day. The country is a curious mixture—miles of moor, as desolate and simple and beautiful as moors can be, and by glimpses, now and then in the valleys between, of entirely civilized villages, with even a town or two here and there, prick-up spires and roofs; and, even more ominous, in this direction and that, lie patches of smoke about the great chimneys.

Jenny was meditative as she rode up alone. It is very difficult to be otherwise when one has passed through one considerable crisis, and foresees a number of others that must be met, especially if one has not made up one's mind as to the proper line of action. It is all very well to be sensible, but a difficulty occasionally arises as to which of two or three courses is the more in accordance with that character. To be impulsive certainly leads to trouble sometimes, but also, sometimes it saves it.

Jenny looked charming in repose. She was in a delightful green habit; she wore a plumy kind of hat; she rode an almost perfect little mare belonging to Lord Talgarth, and her big blue, steady eyes roved slowly round her as she went, seeing nothing. It was, in fact, the almost perfect little mare who first gave warning of the approach to the sportsmen, by starting violently all over at the sound of a shot, fired about half a mile away. Jenny steadied her, pulled her up, and watched between the cocked and twitching ears.

Below her, converging slowly upwards, away from herself, moved a line of dots, each precisely like its neighbor in color (Lord Talgarth was very particular, indeed, about the uniform of his beaters), and by each moved a red spot, which Jenny understood to be a flag. The point towards which they were directed culminated in a low, rounded hill, and beneath the crown of this, in a half circle, were visible a series of low defenses, like fortifications, to command the face of the slope and the dips on either side. This was always the last beat—in this moor—before lunch; and lunch itself, she knew, would be waiting on the other side of the hill. Occasionally as she watched, she saw a slight movement behind this or that butt—no more—and the only evidence of human beings, beside the beaters, lay in the faint wreath of all but invisible smoke that followed the reports, coming now quicker and quicker, as the grouse took alarm. Once with a noise like a badly ignited rocket, there burst over the curve before her a flying brown thing, that, screaming with terrified exultation, whirred within twenty yards of her head and vanished into silence. (One cocked ear of the mare bent back to see if the rocket were returning or not.)

Jenny's meditations became more philosophical than ever as she looked. She found herself wondering how much free choice the grouse—if they were capable themselves of philosophizing—would imagine themselves to possess in the face of this noisy but insidious death. She reminded herself that every shred of instinct and experience that each furious little head contained bade the owner of it to fly as fast and straight as possible, in squawking company with as many friends as possible, away from those horrible personages in green and silver with the agitating red flags, and up that quiet slope which, at the worst, only emitted sudden noises. A reflective grouse would perhaps (and two out of three did) consider that he could fly faster and be sooner hidden from the green men with red flags, if he slid crosswise down the valleys on either side. But—Jenny observed—that was already calculated by these human enemies, and butts (like angels' swords) commanded even these approaches too.

It was obvious, then, that however great might be the illusion of free choice, in reality there was none: they were betrayed hopelessly by the very instincts intended to safeguard them; practical common-sense, in this case, at least, led them straight into the jaws of death. A little originality and impulsiveness would render them immortal so far as guns were concerned....

Yes; but there was one who had been original, who had actually preferred to fly straight past a monster in green on a gray mare rather than to face the peaceful but deathly slopes; and he had escaped. But obviously he was an exception. Originality in grouse—

At this point the mare breathed slowly and contemptuously and advanced a delicate, impatient foot, having quite satisfied herself that danger was no longer imminent; and Jenny became aware she was thinking nonsense.

There were a number of unimportant but well-dressed persons at lunch, with most of whom Jenny was acquainted. These extended themselves on the ground and said the right things one after another; and all began with long drinks, and all ended with heavy meals. There were two other women whom she knew slightly, who had driven up half an hour before. Everything was quite perfect—down even to hot grilled grouse that emerged from emblazoned silver boxes, and hot black coffee poured from "Thermos" flasks. Jenny asked intelligent questions and made herself agreeable.

At the close of lunch she found herself somehow sitting on a small rock beside Dick. Lord Talgarth was twenty yards away, his gaitered legs very wide apart, surveying the country and talking to the keeper. Her father was looking down the barrels of his rather ineffective gun, and Archie, with three or four other men and two women, a wife and a sister, was smoking with his back against a rock.

"Shall you be in to-morrow?" asked Dick casually.

Jenny paused an instant.

"I should think so!" she said. "I've got one or two things to do."

"Perhaps I may look in? I want to talk to you about something if I may."

"Shan't you be shooting again?"

"No; I'm not very fit and shall take a rest."

Jenny was silent.

"About what time?" pursued Dick.

Jenny roused herself with a little start. She had been staring out over the hills and wondering if that was the church above Barham that she could almost see against the horizon.

"Oh! any time up to lunch," she said vaguely.

Dick stood up slowly with a satisfied air and stretched himself. He looked very complete and trim, thought Jenny, from his flat cap to his beautifully-spatted shooting-boots. (It was twelve hundred a year, at least, wasn't it?)

"Well, I suppose we shall be moving directly," he said.

A beater came up bringing the mare just before the start was made.

"All right, you can leave her," said Jenny. "I won't mount yet. Just hitch the bridle on to something."

It was a pleasant and picturesque sight to see the beaters, like a file of medieval huntsmen, dwindle down the hill in their green and silver in one direction, and, five minutes later, the sportsmen in another. It looked like some mysterious military maneuver on a small scale; and again Jenny considered the illusion of free choice enjoyed by the grouse, who, perhaps, two miles away, crouched in hollows among the heather. And yet, practically speaking, there was hardly any choice at all....

Lady Richard, the wife of one of the men, interrupted her in a drawl.

"Looks jolly, doesn't it?" she said.

Jenny assented cordially.

(She hated this woman, somehow, without knowing why. She said to herself it was the drawl and the insolent cold eyes and the astonishing complacency; and she only half acknowledged that it was the beautiful lines of the dress and the figure and the assured social position.)

"We're driving," went on the tall girl. "You rode, didn't you?

"Yes."

"Lord Talgarth's mare, isn't it? I thought I recognized her."

"Yes. I haven't got a horse of my own, you know," said Jenny deliberately.

"Oh!"

Jenny suddenly felt her hatred rise almost to passion.

"I must be going," she said. "I've got to visit an old woman who's dying. A rector's daughter, you know—"

"Ah! yes."

Then Jenny mounted from a rock (Lady Richard held the mare's head and settled the habit), and rode slowly away downhill.

(III)

Dick approached the Rectory next day a little before twelve o'clock with as much excitement in his heart as he ever permitted to himself.

Dick is a good fellow—I haven't a word to say against him, except perhaps that he used to think that to be a Guiseley, and to have altogether sixteen hundred a year and to live in a flat in St. James's, and to possess a pointed brown beard and melancholy brown eyes and a reposeful manner, relieved him from all further effort. I have wronged him, however; he had made immense efforts to be proficient at billiards, and had really succeeded; and, since his ultimate change of fortune, has embraced even further responsibilities in a conscientious manner.

Of course, he had been in love before in a sort of way; but this was truly different. He wished to marry Jenny very much indeed.... That she was remarkably sensible, really beautiful and eminently presentable, of course, paved the way; but, if I understand the matter rightly, these were not the only elements in the case. It was the genuine thing. He did not quite know how he would face the future if she refused him; and he was sufficiently humble to be in doubt.

The neat maid told him at the door that Miss Launton had given directions that he was to be shown into the garden if he came.... No; Miss Launton was in the morning-room, but she should be told at once. So Dick strolled across the lawn and sat down by the garden table.

He looked at the solemn, dreaming house in the late summer sunshine; he observed a robin issue out from a lime tree and inspect him sideways; and then another robin issue from another lime tree and drive the first one away. Then he noticed a smear of dust on his own left boot, and flicked it off with a handkerchief. Then, as he put his handkerchief away again, he saw Jenny coming out from the drawing-room window.

She looked really extraordinarily beautiful as she came slowly across towards him and he stood to meet her. She was bare-headed, but her face was shadowed by the great coils of hair. She was in a perfectly plain pink dress, perfectly cut, and she carried herself superbly. She looked just a trifle paler than yesterday, he thought, and there was a very reserved, steady kind of question in her eyes. (I am sorry to be obliged to go on saying this sort of thing about Jenny every time she comes upon the scene; but it is the sort of thing that everyone is obliged to go on thinking whenever she makes her appearance.)

"I've got a good deal to say," said Dick, after they had sat a moment or two. "May I say it right out to the end?"

"Why, certainly," said Jenny.

Dick leaned back and crossed one knee over the other. His manner was exactly right—at any rate, it was exactly what he wished it to be, and all through his little speech he preserved it. It was quite restrained, extremely civilized, and not at all artificial. It was his method of presenting a fact—the fact that he really was in love with this girl—and was in his best manner. There was a lightness of touch about this method of his, but it was only on the surface.

"I daresay it's rather bad form my coming and saying all this so soon, but I can't help that. I know you must have gone through an awful lot in the last month or two—perhaps even longer—but I don't know about that. And I want to begin by apologizing if I am doing what I shouldn't. The fact is that—well, that I daren't risk waiting."

He did not look at Jenny (he was observing the robin that had gone and come again since Jenny had appeared), but he was aware that at his first sentence she had suddenly settled down into complete motionlessness. He wondered whether that was a good omen or not.

"Well, now," he said, "let me give a little account of myself first. I'm just thirty-one; I've got four hundred a year of my own, and Lord Talgarth allows me twelve hundred a year more. Then I've got other expectations, as they say. My uncle gives me to understand that my allowance is secured to me in his will; and I'm the heir of my aunt, Lady Simon, whom you've probably met. I just mention that to show I'm not a pauper—"

"Mr. Guiseley—" began Jenny.

"Please wait. I've not done yet. Do you mind? ... I'm a decent living man. I'm not spotless, but I'll answer any questions you like to put—to your father. I've not got any profession, though I'm supposed to be a solicitor; but I'm perfectly willing to work if ... if it's wished, or to stand for Parliament, or anything like that—there hasn't, so far, seemed any real, particular reason why I should work. That's all. And I think you know the sort of person I am, all round.

"And now we come to the point." (Dick hesitated a fraction of a second. He was genuinely moved.) "The point is that I'm in love with you, and I have been for some time past. I ... I can't put it more plainly ... (One moment, please, I've nearly done.) ... I can't think of anything else; and I haven't been able to for the last two or three months. I ... I ... I'm fearfully sorry for poor old Frank; I'm very fond of him, you know, but I couldn't help finding it an extraordinary relief when I heard the news. And now I've come to ask you, perfectly straight, whether you'll consent to be my wife."

Dick looked at her for the first time since he had begun his little speech.

She still sat absolutely quiet (she had not even moved at the two words she had uttered), but she had gone paler still. Her mouth was in repose, without quiver or movement, and her beautiful eyes looked steadily on to the lawn before her. She said nothing.

"If you can't give me an answer quite at once," began Dick again presently, "I'm perfectly willing to—"

She turned and looked him courageously in the face.

"I can't say 'Yes,'" she said. "That would be absurd.... You have been quite straightforward with me, and I must be straightforward with you. That is what you wish, isn't it?"

Dick inclined his head. His heart was thumping furiously with exultation—in spite of her words.

"Then what I say is this: You must wait a long time. If you had insisted on an answer now, I should have said 'No.' I hate to keep you waiting, particularly when I do really think it will be 'No' in the long run; but as I'm not quite sure, and as you've been perfectly honest and courteous, if you really wish it I won't say 'No' at once. Will that do?"

"Whatever you say," said Dick.

"You mustn't forget I was engaged to Frank till quite lately. Don't you see how that obscures one's judgment? I simply can't judge now, and I know I can't.... You're willing to wait, then?—even though I tell you now that I think it will be 'No'?"

"Whatever you say," said Dick again; "and may I say thank you for not saying 'No' at once?"

A very slight look of pain came into the girl's eyes.

"I would sooner you didn't," she said. "I'm sorry you said that...."

"I'm sorry," said poor Dick.

There was a pause.

"One other thing," said Jenny. "Would you mind not saying anything to my father? I don't want him to be upset any more. Have you told anybody else you were—?"

"Yes," said Dick bravely, "I told Archie."

"I'm sorry you did that. Will you then just tell him exactly what I said—exactly, you know. That I thought it would be 'No'; but that I only didn't say so at once because you wished it."

"Very well," said Dick.

It was a minute or so before either spoke again. Jenny had that delightful and soothing gift which prevents silence from being empty. It is the same gift, in another form, as that which enables its possessor to put people at their ease. (It is, I suppose, one of the elements of tact.) Dick had a sense that they were still talking gently and reasonably, though he could not quite understand all that Jenny was meaning.

She interrupted it by a sudden sentence.

"I wonder if it's fair," she said. "You know I'm all but certain. I only don't say so because—"

"Let it be at that," said Dick. "It's my risk, isn't it?"

(III)

When he had left her at last, she sat on perfectly still in the same place. The robin had given it up in despair: this human creature was not going to scratch garden-paths as she sometimes did, and disclose rich worms and small fat maggots. But a cat had come out instead and was now pacing with stiff forelegs, lowered head and trailing tail, across the sunny grass, endeavoring to give an impression that he was bent on some completely remote business of his own.

He paused at the edge of the shadow and eyed the girl malignantly.

"Wow!" said the cat.

There was no response.

"Wow!" said the cat.

Jenny roused herself.

"Wow!" said Jenny meditatively.

"Wow!" said the cat, walking on.

"Wow!" said Jenny.

Again there was a long silence.

"Wow!" said Jenny indignantly.

The cat turned a slow head sideways as he began to cross the path, but said nothing. He waited for another entreaty, but Jenny paid no more attention. As he entered the yews he turned once more.

"Wow!" said the cat, almost below his breath.

But Jenny made no answer. The cat cast one venomous look and disappeared.

Then there came out a dog—a small brown and black animal, very sturdy on his legs, and earnest and independent in air and manner. He was the illegitimate offspring of a fox-terrier. He trotted briskly across from the direction of the orchard, diagonally past Jenny. As he crossed the trail of the cat he paused, smelt, and followed it up for a yard or two, till he identified for certain that it proceeded from an acquaintance; then he turned to resume his journey. The movement attracted the girl's attention.

"Lama!" called Jenny imperiously. "Come here this instant!"

Lama put his head on one side, nodded and smiled at her indulgently, and trotted on.

"Oh, dear me!" said Jenny, sighing out loud.