“O’ course I do,” she repeated emphatically. Then she turned and pulled down another sheet off the line, and another and another, till her arms were quite full.
Meanwhile Frewin stood watching her, indecision in every line of his face and figure. She was very pretty, very graceful about her work, very strong and hearty. Her fresh cheeks were pink even amid the pink blossom, and her golden hair shone against the golden sky, where the sun was setting on a bank of soft rose-washed grey clouds behind the trees of the orchard.
“I s’pose anyways ye are sure to be taken up to-morrow evening?” said he at last. “A pretty girl like you always is o’ Sundays.”
“Well, if you know as I’m taken up, I s’pose I must be,” said she with a little pout.
“Well, there, I’ll ask now,” said he with a bit of a shame-faced laugh. “Ye ’ave got a way with ye, miss, and no mistake!”
“Don’t ask to please me,” she said with the old toss of the little head. But the smile took the venom out of the words, and Frewin bowed beneath it as he had been slowly bowing ever since he first felt the flash of it.
“No, I’ll ask to please myself,” said he. And he went up to her and took her one free hand in his. Then the blushes crept right up into the bright hair, and there was silence.
“But we won’t walk hereabouts,” murmured she after a pause. “I’d not like to meet—folks. I tell ye what I should like if mother ’ll spare me, and that’d be for to go off right early and up in the train to see yer poor mother.”
“Would ye now?” declared he, well satisfied. “She’d be rare and pleased. Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“And by-gones to be by-gones?” begged she timidly. “And not a word to Charlie Lambert?”
“No, it’s as I sees fit,” murmured she softly, and her face was very close to his.
“You leave Charlie Lambert to me,” she added presently. “He pretty soon knew I was off it as soon as I was on. He’s got a flea o’ mine in his ear a’ready, and ’e’ll ’ave another if ’e don’t look out. You leave ’em all to me.”
“I s’pose everybody’s bound to do yer bidding sooner or later,” laughed Frewin half ruefully, “me as well as most.”
“Yes, don’t you make no mistake about that,” smiled she. “And what’s more, don’t ye ever go for to fancy that because I was such a bold-faced silly as to lay that wager I ever went for to win it. If ever there was a man I _didn’t_ try to catch, it was you.”