‘Good-afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes,’ cried the newcomer. ‘Good-afternoon, _Miss_ Fellowes.’
They both returned his salutation, and he stood before them smilingly, holding his stick lightly by the middle, and swinging it hither and thither, as if keeping time to an inward silent tune. His feet were planted a little apart, he carried his head well back, and his figure was very alert and lithe. He made great use of his lips in talking, and whatever he said seemed a little overdone in emphasis. His expression was eager, amiable, and sensitive, and it changed like the complexion of water in variable weather. He was a bit of a dandy in his way, too. His clothes showed his slim and elastic figure to the best advantage, and a bright-coloured neckerchief with loose flying ends helped out a certain air of festal rural opera which belonged to him.
‘I passed Thistlewood on my way here,’ he said, laughing brightly. ‘He looked as cheerful as a frog. Did y’ ever notice what a cheerful-looking thing a frog is?’
He made a face ludicrously like the creature he mentioned. The old woman laughed outright, and Bertha smiled, though somewhat unwillingly.
‘I don’t like to hear Mr. Thistlewood made game of, Mr. Protheroe,’ she said a moment later.
‘Don’t you, Miss Fellowes?’ asked Mr. Protheroe. ‘Then it shan’t be done in your presence again.’
‘That means it may be done out of my presence, I suppose,’ the girl said coldly.
‘No, nor out of it,’ said the young fellow, bowing with something of a flourish, ‘if it displeases you.’
‘Come in, Lane, my lad,’ said the mother, genially. ‘I’ve got the poultry to look after at this hour. Bertha ‘ll tek care of you till I come back again.’
Lane Protheroe bowed again with the same gay flourish, and recovering himself from the bow with an upward swing of the head, followed the women-folk into the wide kitchen as if he had been crossing the floor in a minuet. If these airs of his had been assumed they would have touched the ridiculous, but they were altogether natural to him; and what with them and his smiling, changeful, sympathetic ways, he was a prime favourite, and seemed to carry sunshine into all sorts of company.
When the mother had left the kitchen the girl seated herself considerably apart from the visitor, and taking up a book from a dresser beside her, began to turn over its pages, stopping now and again to read a line or two, and rather ostentatiously disregarding her companion. He sat in silence, regarding her with a grave face for a minute or thereabouts, and then, rising, crossed the room and placed himself beside her, bending over her, with one hand resting on the dresser. She did not look up in answer to this movement, but bent her head even a little more than before above the book.