Chapter 2

The reapers had laid low the last of the golden heads, and the
sheaves stood like yellow tombstones on Racket Field. Beyond the field
was Chelfordbury, where the gray old spire of the church came up from
a velvety knoll of trees; beyond again, the green and white downs of
Sussex, along the foot of which the railway runs.

Dick Alford sat on a stile on the top of a little hillock and could
see across the weald for fifteen miles. He could turn his head and
take in the home farm and the green roofs and cupolas of Fossaway
Manor, with its broad lawns and its clipped yew hedges. Neither
cornfield nor down, manor house nor pleasaunce, interested him for the
moment. His eyes were fixed and his mind centred upon the girl who was
walking quickly up the winding path that would bring her presently to
where he sat.

She was singing as she walked, the riding crop she carried whirling
round and round like a drum major’s baton. His lips twitched to the
ghost of a smile. Presently she would see him, and he wondered if she
would be annoyed. He had never seen Leslie Gwyn except in such
circumstances that her face was a pleasant mask and her manner
conventionally charming. She had been nicely brought up and taught
that all things are permissible except one: to make one’s equal feel
foolish.

The song ceased. She had seen him, but she did not check her pace and
came quickly up the hill path, slashing at a nettle bush as she
walked.

“Peeping Tom!” she greeted him reproachfully.

She was not so tall as the average English girl, but her slimness gave
her height, and the supple movement of her hinted at greater strength
than her slight figure suggested. Her face, delicately modelled, had
the subtle refinement of her class. Small, beautiful hands and feet, a
head finely poised, eyes of a deep gray, and a red mouth that smiled
easily, Leslie Gwyn in rags would have been unmistakably a beautiful
lady.

Dick had seen her riding; she gripped the withers with her knees,
jockey fashion, and was part of the horse. He had seen her on the
polished dancing floor; there was lissom grace in every line. When he
danced with her, he held in his arms a fragrant something that had
more substance and character than he had thought. The hand on his
shoulder was definitely placed, the body which his arm encircled was
firm; he could feel the tiny muscles ripple under his hand.

She stood now, her little black riding hat askew, her figure clad in
neat black relieved by the lawn collar. Her neatly booted legs were
planted stubbornly apart, one gloved hand holding her waist, the other
swinging the crop. In her gray eyes was an imp of mischief that
gleamed and danced all the merrier for the studied solemnity of every
other feature.

Dick Alford, from his vantage place on the top rail of the stile,
chewed a blade of toddy grass between his white teeth and surveyed her
approvingly.

“Been riding, Leslie?”

“I have been riding,” she said gravely, and added: “a horse.”

He looked round innocently.

“Where is the favoured animal?” he demanded.

She looked at him suspiciously, but not a muscle of the tanned, lean
face so much as twitched.

“I dismounted to pick wild flowers and the beastie ran away. You saw
him!” she accused.

“I saw something that looked like a horse running toward Willow
House,” he confessed calmly. “I thought he had thrown you.”

She nodded.

“For that prevarication you can go and find him--I’ll wait here,” she
said, and, when he got down from the stile with a groan: “I meant you
to do that, anyway. The moment I saw you I said to myself: ‘There’s a
lazy man who wants exercise!’ Sisters-in-law-to-be have privileges.”

He winced a little at this. She may have noticed the cloud that came
momentarily to his face, for she put out her hand and checked him.

“One of the grooms can find him, Dick. He is such a hungry pig that he
is certain to make for his stable… no, I _don’t_ mean the groom. Sit
down; I want to talk to you.”

She swung up to the stile and took the place he had vacated.

“Richard Alford, I don’t think you are enjoying the prospect of my
being the mistress of Fossaway House?”

“Manor,” he corrected.

“Don’t quibble--are you?”

“I count the days,” he said lightly.

“Do you?”

He took a battered silver case from his hip pocket, selected a
cigarette and lit it.

“My dear Leslie----” he began, but she shook her head. She was very
serious now.

“You think I will--interfere with things? With the management of the
estate--I know poor Harry couldn’t manage a small holding--with--oh,
with all sorts of things, but I think you are wrong.”

He blew three smoke rings into the air before he answered.

“I wish you would manage the estate,” he said quietly. “It would be a
blessing to me. No, I’m not worried about that. With your
money--forgive the brutality--the estate will not count. A bailiff
could manage it as well as any second son!”