She began to take a pleasure in her excitement: she had something
to do; she was delivered from the monotony of thought.
On her way from the stables she met Charles Batty going home for his
midday meal, and she stopped him. 'Charles!' she said. She presented
to his appreciative eyes a very elegant figure in the habit looped up
to show her high slim boots, with her thick plait of hair under the
hard hat, her complexion defying the whiteness of her stock; while to
her he appeared with something of the aspect of an angel in a long top
coat and a hat at the back of his head. 'Charles,' she said again,
tapping her boot with her whip, 'I'm in trouble. Would you mind
walking home by the hill? I want you to help me, but I can't tell you
how. Not yet.'
He walked beside her without speaking and they came to the place where
he had stood with Henrietta and she had flouted him; whither she had
wandered on her first day in Radstowe, that high point overlooking the
gorge, the rocks, the trees, the river; that scene of which not
Charles, nor Rose, nor Henrietta could ever tire.
'Not, yet,' she repeated. 'Will you meet me this afternoon?'
'Look here,' he remonstrated, 'if Henrietta found out--'
She had not time to smile. 'It's for her sake.'
'I'll do anything,' he said.
'Then will you meet me this afternoon at five o'clock? Not here. I may
not be able to get so far. Where can we meet?'
'Well, there's the post-office.
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