"
"But--she's so very young. How does she manage it?" Sir Basil queried over
the photograph, whose eyes dwelt on him while he spoke,
"Oh, you'll see," Valerie smiled a little at his pertinacity. "I've no
doubt that she will improve you."
"Well," said Sir Basil, recognizing her jocund intention, "she's welcome
to try. As long as you are there to see that she isn't too hard on me." He
dismissed Imogen, then, from his sight and thoughts, replacing her on the
writing-table and suggesting that Mrs. Upton should take a little walk with
him. His horse had been put into the stable and he could come back for him.
Mrs. Upton said that when they came back he must stay to lunch and that be
could ride home afterward, and this was agreed on; so that in ten minutes'
time Mrs. Pakenham and Mrs. Wake, from their respective windows, were able
to watch their widowed friend walking away across the heather with Sir
Basil beside her.
Neither spoke much as they wended their way along the little paths of
silvery sand that intersected the common. The day was clear, with a milky,
blue-streaked sky; the distant foldings of the hills were of a deep,
hyacinthine blue.
From time to time Sir Basil glanced at the face beside him, thoughtful to
sadness, its dusky fairness set in black, but attentive, as always, to the
sights and sounds of the well-loved country about her. He liked to watch
the quick glancing, the clear gazing, of her eyes; everything she looked at
became at once more significant to him--the tangle of tenacious roots that
thrust through the greensand soil of the lane they entered, the suave, gray
columns of the beeches above, the blurred mauves and russets of the woods,
the swift, awkward flight of a pheasant that crossed their way with a
creaking whir of wings, the amethyst stars of a bush of Michaelmas daisies,
showing over a whitewashed cottage wall, the far blue distance before them,
framed in the tracery of the beech-boughs.
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