Vellacott thought of these things while he dressed, he thought of them intermittently during the unsettled, noisy, country breakfast, and when he found himself walking beside the moat with Hilda later on he was still thinking of them.
They had not yet gathered into their hands the threads which had been broken years before. At times they hit upon a topic of some slight common interest, but something hovered in the air between them. Hilda was gay, as she had always been, in a gentle, almost purring way; but a certain constrained silence made itself felt at times, and they were both intensely conscious of it.
Vellacott was fully aware that there was something to be got over, and so instead of skipping round it, as a woman might have done, he went blundering on to the top of it.
“Hilda,” he said suddenly, “I have never congratulated you.”
She bent her head in a grave little bow which was not quite English; but she said nothing.
“I can only wish you all happiness,” he continued rather vaguely.
Again she made that mystic little motion of the head, but did not look towards him, and never offered the assistance of smile or word.
“A long life, a happy one, and your own will,” he added more lightly, looking down into the green water of the moat.
“Thank you,” she said, standing quite still beside him.
And then there followed an awkward pause. It was Vellacott who finally broke the silence in the only way left to him.
“I like Farrar,” he said. “I am sure he will make you happy. He--is a lucky fellow.”
At the end of the walk that ran the whole length of that part of the moat which had been allowed to remain intact, she made a little movement as if to turn aside beneath the hazel trees and towards the house. But he would not let her go. He turned deliberately upon his heel and waited for her. There was nothing else to do but acquiesce. They retraced their steps with that slow reflectiveness which comes when one walks backwards and forwards over the same ground.
There is something eminently conversational in the practice of walking to and fro. For that purpose it is better than an arm-chair and a pipe, or a piece of knitting.
Occasionally Vellacott dropped a pace behind, apparently with a purpose; for when he did so he raised his eyes instantly. He seemed to be slowly detailing the maiden, and he frowned a little. She was exactly what she had promised to be. The singularly golden hair which he had last seen flowing freely over her slight young shoulders had acquired a decorousness of curve, although the hue was unchanged. The shoulders were exactly the same in contour, on a slightly larger scale; and the manner of carrying her head--a manner peculiarly her own, and suggestive of a certain gentle wilfulness--was unaltered.