"'Twas very odd what we said to each other years ago; I often think of
it. I mean our saying that if we still liked each other when you were
twenty and I twenty-five, we'd--"
"It was child's tattle."
"H'm!" said Giles, suddenly.
"I mean we were young," said she, more considerately. That gruff
manner of his in making inquiries reminded her that he was unaltered in
much.
"Yes....I beg your pardon, Miss Melbury; your father SENT me to meet
you to-day."
"I know it, and I am glad of it."
He seemed satisfied with her tone and went on: "At that time you were
sitting beside me at the back of your father's covered car, when we
were coming home from gypsying, all the party being squeezed in
together as tight as sheep in an auction-pen. It got darker and
darker, and I said--I forget the exact words--but I put my arm round
your waist and there you let it stay till your father, sitting in front
suddenly stopped telling his story to Farmer Bollen, to light his pipe.
The flash shone into the car, and showed us all up distinctly; my arm
flew from your waist like lightning; yet not so quickly but that some
of 'em had seen, and laughed at us. Yet your father, to our amazement,
instead of being angry, was mild as milk, and seemed quite pleased.
Have you forgot all that, or haven't you?"
She owned that she remembered it very well, now that he mentioned the
circumstances. "But, goodness! I must have been in short frocks," she
said.
"Come now, Miss Melbury, that won't do! Short frocks, indeed! You know
better, as well as I."
Grace thereupon declared that she would not argue with an old friend
she valued so highly as she valued him, saying the words with the easy
elusiveness that will be polite at all costs. It might possibly be
true, she added, that she was getting on in girlhood when that event
took place; but if it were so, then she was virtually no less than an
old woman now, so far did the time seem removed from her present. "Do
you ever look at things philosophically instead of personally?" she
asked.
"I can't say that I do," answered Giles, his eyes lingering far ahead
upon a dark spot, which proved to be a brougham.
"I think you may, sometimes, with advantage," said she. "Look at
yourself as a pitcher drifting on the stream with other pitchers, and
consider what contrivances are most desirable for avoiding cracks in
general, and not only for saving your poor one. Shall I tell you all
about Bath or Cheltenham, or places on the Continent that I visited
last summer?"