"Dearest, what shall I do? You must tell me," he said, as if he had
been thinking. "I will do whatever you wish, whatever you think best.
I've a strong suspicion that you're the cleverest of us; that you've
got more brains in this sweet little finger of yours than I've got in
my clumsy head--"
She laughed softly and looked at the head which he had libelled, the
shapely head with its close-cut hair, which, sliding her hand up, she
touched caressingly.
"Shall I come to your father to-morrow, Ida? I will ride over after
breakfast--before, if you like: if I had my way I'd patrol up and down
here all night until it was a decent time to call upon him."
She nestled a little closer to him, and her brows came level with
sudden gravity and doubt.
"My father! I had not thought of him--of what he would say--do. But I
know! He--he will be very angry," she said, in a low voice.
"Will he? Why?" Stafford asked. "Of course I know I'm not worthy of
you, Ida; no living man is!"
"Not worthy!"
She smiled at him with the woman's worship already dawning in her deep
grey eyes.
"It is I who am not worthy. Why, think! I am only an inexperienced
girl--living the life of a farmer's daughter. We are very poor--oh, you
do not know how poor! We are almost as poor as the smallest tenant,
though we live in this big house, and are still regarded as great
people--the Herons of Herondale."
"That's one of the things I have been thinking of," said Stafford.
"What lovely hair you have, Ida! It is not often that dark hair is so
soft, is it?"
He bent down and drew a look, which his caresses had released, across
her lips, and kissed her through it.
"You are lords of the soil, people of importance and rank here, while
we are--well, just ordinary folk. I can quite understand your father
objecting. Dearest, you are worthy of a duke, a prince--"
She put her hand up to his lips to silence the lover's extravagant
flattery.
"It is not that--the difference--which is all to your advantage," she
said. "My father may think of it," she went on with innocent candour.
"But it would be the same if you were of the highest rank. He does not
want me to leave him."
"And if he were less anxious to keep you he would not give you to me,
who am, in his opinion, and rightly, so much your inferior," said
Stafford. "But I ought to go to him, dearest. I ought to go to-morrow."