“Is that man here by your permission?” he said to Farmer Wickens, who was walking about as if superintending a harvest.
“He is here because he likes, I take it,” said Wickens stubbornly. “He is a neighbor of mine and a friend of mine. Is there any objections to my having a friend on my own pond, seein’ that there is nigh on two or three ton of other people’s friends on it without as much as a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave.”
“Oh, no,” said Fairholme, somewhat dashed. “If you are satisfied there can be no objection.”
“I’m glad on it. I thought there mout be.”
“Let me tell you,” said Fairholme, nettled, “that your landlord would not be pleased to see him here. He sent one of Sir John’s best shepherds out of the country, after filling his head with ideas above his station. I heard Sir John speak very warmly about it last Sunday.”
“Mayhap you did, Muster Fairholme. I have a lease of this land — and gravelly, poor stuff it is — and I am no ways beholden to Sir John’s likings and dislikings. A very good thing too for Sir John that I have a lease, for there ain’t a man in the country ‘ud tak’ a present o’ the farm if it was free tomorrow. And what’s a’ more, though that young man do talk foolish things about the rights of farm laborers and such-like nonsense, if Sir John was to hear him layin’ it down concernin’ rent and improvements, and the way we tenant farmers is put upon, p’raps he’d speak warmer than ever next Sunday.”
And Wickens, with a smile expressive of his sense of having retorted effectively upon the parson, nodded and walked away.
Just then Agatha, skating hand in hand with Jane Carpenter, heard these words in her ear: “I have something very funny to tell you. Don’t look round.”
She recognized the voice of Smilash and obeyed.
“I am not quite sure that you will enjoy it as it deserves,” he added, and darted off again, after casting an eloquent glance at Miss Carpenter.
Agatha disengaged herself from her companion, made a circuit, and passed near Smilash, saying: “What is it?”
Smilash flitted away like a swallow, traced several circles around Fairholme, and then returned to Agatha and proceeded side by side with her.
“I have read the letter you wrote to Hetty,” he said.
Agatha’s face began to glow. She forgot to maintain her balance, and almost fell.
“Take care. And so you are not fond of me — in the romantic sense?”
No answer. Agatha dumb and afraid to lift her eyelids.
“That is fortunate,” he continued, “because — good evening, Miss Ward; I have done nothing but admire your skating for the last hour — because men were deceivers ever; and I am no exception, as you will presently admit.”
Agatha murmured something, but it was unintelligible amid the din of skating.
“You think not? Well, perhaps you are right; I have said nothing to you that is not in a measure true. You have always had a peculiar charm for me. But I did not mean you to tell Hetty. Can you guess why?”
Agatha shook her head.
“Because she is my wife.”
Agatha’s ankles became limp. With an effort she kept upright until she reached Jane, to whom she clung for support.
“Don’t,” screamed Jane. “You’ll upset me.”
“I must sit down,” said Agatha. “I am tired. Let me lean on you until we get to the chairs.”
“Bosh! I can skate for an hour without sitting down,” said Jane. However, she helped Agatha to a chair and left her. Then Smilash, as if desiring a rest also, sat down close by on the margin of the pond.
“Well,” he said, without troubling himself as to whether their conversation attracted attention or not, “what do you think of me now?”
“Why did you not tell me before, Mr. Trefusis?”
“That is the cream of the joke,” he replied, poising his heels on the ice so that his skates stood vertically at legs’ length from him, and looking at them with a cynical air. “I thought you were in love with me, and that the truth would be too severe a blow to you. Ha! ha! And, for the same reason, you generously forbore to tell me that you were no more in love with me than with the man in the moon. Each played a farce, and palmed it off on the other as a tragedy.”
“There are some things so unmanly, so unkind, and so cruel,” said Agatha, “that I cannot understand any gentleman saying them to a girl. Please do not speak to me again. Miss Ward! Come to me for a moment. I — I am not well.”
Ward hurried to her side. Smilash, after staring at her for a moment in astonishment, and in some concern, skimmed away into the crowd. When he reached the opposite bank he took off his skates and asked Jane, who strayed intentionally in his direction, to tell Miss Wylie that he was gone, and would skate no more there. Without adding a word of explanation he left her and made for his dwelling. As he went down into the hollow where the road passed through the plantation on the college side of the chalet he descried a boy, in the uniform of the post office, sliding along the frozen ditch. A presentiment of evil tidings came upon him like a darkening of the sky. He quickened his pace.
“Anything for me?” he said.
The boy, who knew him, fumbled in a letter case and produced a buff envelope. It contained a telegram.
From Jansenius, London.
TO J. Smilash, Chamoounix Villa, Lyvern.
Henrietta dangerously ill after journey wants to see you doctors say must come at once.
There was a pause. Then he folded the paper methodically and put it in his pocket, as if quite done with it.
“And so,” he said, “perhaps the tragedy is to follow the farce after all.”
He looked at the boy, who retreated, not liking his expression.
“Did you slide all the way from Lyvern?”
“Only to come quicker,” said the messenger, faltering. “I came as quick as I could.”
“You carried news heavy enough to break the thickest ice ever frozen. I have a mind to throw you over the top of that tree instead of giving you this half-crown.”
“You let me alone,” whimpered the boy, retreating another pace.
“Get back to Lyvern as fast as you can run or slide, and tell Mr. Marsh to send me the fastest trap he has, to drive me to the railway station. Here is your half-crown. Off with you; and if I do not find the trap ready when I want it, woe betide you.”
The boy came for the money mistrustfully, and ran off with it as fast as he could. Smilash went into the chalet and never reappeared. Instead, Trefusis, a gentleman in an ulster, carrying a rug, came out, locked the door, and hurried along the road to Lyvern, where he was picked up by the trap, and carried swiftly to the railway station, just in time to catch the London train.
“Evening paper, sir?” said a voice at the window, as he settled himself in the corner of a first-class carriage.
“No, thank you.”
“Footwarmer, sir?” said a porter, appearing in the news-vender’s place.
“Ah, that’s a good idea. Yes, let me have a footwarmer.”
The footwarmer was brought, and Trefusis composed himself comfortably for his journey. It seemed very short to him; he could hardly believe, when the train arrived in London, that