To Ida--ah, well, who shall measure the intensity of a girl's first
passion? She only lived in the expectation of seeing him, in his
presence and the whispered words and caresses of his love; and, in his
absence, in the memory of them. For her life meant just this man who
had come and taken the heart from her bosom and enthroned his own in
its place.
They told each other everything. Stafford knew the whole of her life
before they met, all the little details of the daily routine of the
Hall, and her management of the farm; and she learnt from him all that
was going on at the great, splendid palace which in his modesty Sir
Stephen Orme had called the Villa. She liked to nestle against him and
hear the small details of his life, as he liked to hear hers; and she
seemed to know all the visitors at the Villa, and their peculiarities,
as well as if she were personally acquainted with them.
"You ought not to leave them so much, Stafford." she said, with mock
reproof, as they sat one afternoon in the ballow by the river. "Don't
you think they notice your absence and wonder where you are?"
"Shouldn't think so," he replied. "Besides, I don't care if they do.
All my worry is that I can't come to you oftener. Every time I leave
you I count up the hours that must pass before I see you again. But I
expect most, if not all, of the visitors will be off presently. Most of
'em have been there the regulation fortnight; a good many come
backwards and forwards; they're the city men, the money men. My father
is closeted with them for hours every day--that big scheme of his seems
to be coming off satisfactorily. It's a railway to some place in
Africa, and all these fellows--the Griffenbergs, and Beltons, that fat
German baron, Wirsch, and the rest of them, are in it. Heaven knows why
my father wants to worry about it for. I heard one of them say that he
calculated to make a million and a half out of it. As if he weren't
rich enough!"
"A million and a half," she said. "What a large sum it seems. What one
could do with a half, a quarter, a tenth of it!"
"What would you do, dearest?" he asked.
She laughed softly.
"I think that I would first buy you a present. And then I'd have the
Hall repainted. No, I'd get the terrace rails and the portico mended;
and yet, perhaps, it would be better to have the inside of the house
painted and papered. You see, there are so many things I could do with
it, that it's difficult to choose."