"Come, George! There must be no quarrel between you and me. What you've just seen and heard, will be all explained by something you have yet to hear. Miss Lees and I have had a little bit of an adventure; and if you'll promise it shan't go further, we'll make you acquainted with it."
Addressed in this style, he readily gives the promise gladly, too. The confidence so offered seems favourable to himself. But, looking for explanation on the instant, he is disappointed. Asking for it, it is denied him, with reason assigned thus:
"You forget we've been full four hours on the river, and are as hungry as a pair of kingfishers hawks, I suppose, you'd say, being a game preserver. Never mind about the simile. Let us in to luncheon, if not too late."
She steps hurriedly off towards the house, the companion following, Shenstone behind both.
However hungry they, never man went to a meal with less appetite than he. All Gwen's cajoling has not tranquillized his spirit, nor driven out of his thoughts that man with the bronzed complexion, dark moustache, and white helmet hat.
CHAPTER IX JEALOUS ALREADY
Neither has her confidence thus extended, nor the conversation leading to it, belied the favourable impression made upon him by her appearance. Instead, so strengthened it, that for the first time in his life he contemplates becoming a benedict. He feels that his fate is sealed or no longer in his hands, but hers.
As Wingate pulls him on homeward, he draws out his cigar case, sets fire to a fresh weed, and, while the blue smoke wreaths up round the rim of his topee, reflects on the incidents of the day, reviewing them in the order of their occurrence.
Circumstances apparently accidental have been strangely in his favour. Helped as by Heaven's own hand, working with the rudest instruments. Through the veriest scum of humanity he has made acquaintance with one of its fairest forms. More than mere acquaintance, he hopes; for surely those warm words, and glances far from cold, could not be the sole offspring of gratitude! If so a little service on the Wye goes a long way. Thus reflects
he in modest appreciation of himself, deeming that he has done but little. How different the value put upon it by Gwen Wynn!
Still he knows not this, or at least cannot be sure of it. If he were, his thoughts would be all rose-coloured, which they are not. Some are dark as the shadows of the April showers now and then drifting across the sun's disc.
One that has just settled on his brow is no reflection from the firmament above no vague imagining but a thing of shape and form the form of a man, seen at the top of the boat-stair, as the ladies were ascending, and not so far off as to have hindered him from observing the man's face, and noting that he was young and rather handsome. Already the eyes of love have caught the keenness of jealousy. A gentleman evidently on terms of intimacy with Miss Wynn. Strange, though, that the look with which he regarded her on saluting seemed to speak of something amiss! What could it mean? Captain Ryecroft has asked this question as his boat was rounding the end of the eyot, with another in the self-same formulary of interrogation, of which but the moment before he was himself the subject:
"Who the deuce can he be?"
Out upon the river, and drawing hard at his Regalia, he goes on:
"Wonderfully familiar the fellow seemed! Can't be a brother! I understood her to say she had none. Does he live at Llangorren? No. She said there was no one there in the shape of masculine relative only an old aunt, and that little dark damsel, who is cousin or something of the kind. But who in the deuce is the gentleman? Might he be a cousin?"
So propounding questions without being able to answer them, he at length addresses himself to the waterman saying:
"Jack, did you observe a gentleman at the head of the stair?"
"Only the head and shoulders o' one, captain."
"Head and shoulders? that's enough. Do you chance to know him?"
"I ain't thorough sure; but I think he be a Mr. Shenstone."
"Who is Mr. Shenstone?"
"The son o' Sir George."
"Sir George! What do you know of him ?"
"Not much to speak of only that he be a big gentleman, whose land lies along the river, two or three miles below."
The information is but slight, and slighter the gratification it gives. Captain Ryecroft has heard of the rich baronet whose estate adjoins that of Llangorren, and whose title, with the property attached, will descend to an only son. It is the torso of this son he has seen above the red sandstone rock. In truth, a formidable rival! So he reflects, smoking away like mad.
After a time, he again observes,
"You've said you don't know the ladies we've helped out of their little trouble?"
"Parsonally, I don't, captain. But, now as I see where they live, I know who they be. I've heerd talk 'bout the biggest o' them a good deal."
The biggest of them! As if she were a salmon! In the boatman's eyes, bulk is evidently her chief recommendation!