uck her that she had said it too loudly and in an
inexpressibly foolish way. Indeed, she came to the conclusion as she
followed him down the hillside that nobody since the world began had
ever done anything so idiotic as saying "Yes" in that particular manner,
and she became scarlet with shame.

When they came to the dazzling tree he advanced to it as if he cared
nothing for its beauty, and showed her with a gruff and business-like
air a split in the trunk. She could not understand how he had not seen
it before, as it had been there for the last four months. Then he had
pointed up to the towers with his stick. "Who's that you were talking to
up there?" "Bob Girvan," she had answered; "did you want to speak to
him, sir?" He seemed, she thought, cross about something. "No, no," he
answered impatiently, "but he's a silly fellow. Why do you want to talk
to him?" She told him that Bob had stopped to ask if his father could
come over and look at the calf her grandmother wanted to sell, and that
seemed to please him, and after that they had talked a little about how
the farm had got on since Grandfather's death. Then he said suddenly, "I
suppose that if you don't go about with Bob Girvan there's some boy who
does take you out. Isn't there?" She whispered, "No." But he had gone on
in a strange, insistent tone, "But you're getting-quite a big girl now.
Seventeen, aren't you, Marion? There'll be somebody soon."

At that, paralysis fell on her. She stared out of the scented shadow in
which they stood together at the masts of Roothing Harbour far away,
wavering like upright serpents in the heated air. Her heart seemed about
to burst. Then she heard a creaking sound, and looked about for its
cause. He had put up his arm and was shaking the branch which hung over
her head so that the blossom was settling on her hair. When she looked
at him he stopped and muttered, "Well, good-bye. It's time I was getting
along," and walked away. From the shadow she had watched him with an
inexplicable sense of victory rising in her heart, coupled with a
disposition to run to someone old and familiar and of authority. A year
later they had stood once more under that hawthorn tree, and again he
had shaken the mayblossom down on her, but this time he had laughed. He
murmured teasingly, "Maid Marion! Maid Marion!" and laughed, and she had
looked up into his eyes. Like many rakes, he had bright, innocent grey
eyes; and indeed, again like many rakes, he wa