"Nine!" she exclaimed with an air of tragedy--"then I shall be late
for breakfast, and I'm ravenous--and gracious heavens!"
"What now, madam?"
"My hair! It's all come down--look at it!"
"I've been doing so ever since I--met you," Barnabas confessed.
"Oh, have you! Then why didn't you tell me of it--and I've lost
nearly all my hairpins--and--oh dear! what will they think?"
"That it is the most beautiful hair in all the world, of course,"
said Barnabas. She was already busy twisting it into a shining rope,
but here she paused to look up at him from under this bright nimbus,
and with two hair-pins in her mouth.
"Oh!" said she again very thoughtfully, and then "Do you think so?"
she inquired, speaking over and round the hairpins as it were.
"Yes," said Barnabas, steady-eyed; and immediately down came the
curling lashes again, while with dexterous white fingers she began
to transform the rope into a coronet.
"I'm afraid it won't hold up," she said, giving her head a tentative
shake, "though, fortunately, I haven't far to go."
"How far?" asked Barnabas.
"To Annersley House, sir."
"Yes," said Barnabas, "that is very near--the glade yonder leads
into the park."
"Do you know Annersley, then, sir?"
Barnabas hesitated and, having gone over the question in his mind,
shook his head.
"I know of it," he answered.
"Do you know Sir George Annersley?"
Again Barnabas hesitated. As a matter of fact he knew as much of Sir
George as he knew of the "great house," as it was called thereabouts,
that is to say he had seen him once or twice--in the distance. But it
would never do to admit as much to her, who now looked up at him
with eyes of witchery as she waited for him to speak. Therefore
Barnabas shook his head, and answered airily enough: "We are not exactly acquainted, madam."
Yesterday he would have scorned the subterfuge; but to-day there was
money in his purse; London awaited him with expectant arms, the very
air was fraught with a magic whereby the impossible might become
concrete fact, wherein dreams might become realities; was not she
herself, as she stood before him lithe and vigorous in all the
perfection of her warm young womanhood--was she not the very
embodiment of those dreams that had haunted him sleeping and waking?
Verily. Therefore with this magic in the air might he not meet Sir
George Annersley at the next cross-roads or by-lane, and strike up
an enduring friendship on the spot--truly, for anything was possible
to-day. Meanwhile my lady had gathered up the folds of her
riding-habit, and yet in the act of turning into the leafy path,
spoke: "Are you going far, sir?"