And now I'm going.'
'Don't go,' he pleaded. 'And look here, you might have loosened your
girths.'
'I might, but I didn't expect to be here so long. I didn't expect to
be so pleasantly entertained.' She put out her hand for his shoulder,
and, bending unwillingly, he received her foot.
'You needn't have said that,' he muttered, 'about being entertained.'
'You're so ungracious, Francis.'
'I can't help it when I care so much.'
From her high seat she looked at him with a sort of envy. 'It must be
rather nice to feel anything deeply enough to make you rude.'
'You torture me,' he said.
She was hurt by the sight of his suffering, she wished she could give
him what he wanted, she felt as though she were injuring a child, yet
her youth resented his childishness: it claimed a passion capable of
overwhelming her. She hardened a little. 'Good-bye,' she said, 'and if
I were you, I should certainly go abroad.'
'I shall!' he threatened her.
'Good-bye, then,' she repeated amiably.
'Don't go,' he begged in a low voice. 'Rose, I don't believe you know
what you are doing, and you've always loved the country, you've always
loved our place. You like our house. You told me once you envied us
our rookery.'
'Yes, I love the rookery,' she said.
'And you'd have your own stables and as many horses as you wanted--'
'And milk from our own cows! And home-laid eggs!'
'Ah, you're laughing at me. You always do.
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