She said not a word, but she pressed a little closer to him, and he bent
and kissed her.
"You don't mind my taking you to the Styles', dearest?" he asked.
"No, oh, no!" she replied. "I would rather have gone there than to any
of the big houses--I mean the county people, Drake. I like to think I am
not the sort of person they dreaded. What was it? 'A fine London lady.'
Perhaps it would be better for you if I were; but for them--well,
perhaps for them it will be better that I am only one of themselves,
able to understand and sympathize with them. Drake, you will not forget
that I am only a nobody, that I am only Nell of Shorne Mills."
He smiled to himself, for he knew that this girl whom he had won was, by
virtue of her beauty and refinement, qualified to fill the highest place
in that vague sphere which went by the name of "society."
"Don't you worry, dearest," he said. "You have won the heart of the
Styles family; and that is no mean conquest. That farm on the right is
the Woodlands, and that just in front is the Broadlands. You will learn
all the names in time, and I want you to know them; I want you to feel
that you have a part and lot in them. Nell, do you think you will ever
be as fond of this place as you are of Shorne Mills?"
"Yes," she said; "because--it is yours, Drake."
He looked down at her gratefully.
"But you shan't lose Shorne Mills," he said resolutely. "I mean to buy
some land there, and build a house, just on the brow of the hill--you
know, Nell; that meadow above The Cottage?--and we'll go there every
summer, and we'll sail the _Annie Laurie_."
So they talked, with intervals of silence filled with his caresses,
until they reached the lodge. And as they came up to it, they heard the
strains of a violin.
Nell awoke with a start.
"Oh, I had almost forgotten!" she said remorsefully.
"Listen!" Drake whispered.
Nell, in the act of pushing the dust cloak from her, listened.
Falconer was playing the "Gloria in Excelsis."
"Oh, how happy I have been!" she murmured, half guiltily.
"And how happy you will be, Heaven grant it, dearest!" Drake murmured,
as he released her hand and she got down.