That afternoon Saxonstowe arrived in town from Yorkshire with a grim determination in his heart to have it out once and for all with Sprats. He had tried to do his duty as a country squire and to interest himself in country life and matters: he had hunted the fox and shot pheasants, sat on the bench at petty and at quarter sessions, condoled with farmers on poor prices and with old women on bad legs, and he was still unsatisfied and restless and conscious of wanting something. The folk round about him came to the conclusion that he was not as other young men of his rank and wealth—he seemed inclined to bookishness, he was a bit shy and a little bit stand-offish in manner, and he did not appear to have much inclination for the society of neighbours in his own station of life. Before he succeeded to the title Saxonstowe had not been much known in the neighbourhood. He had sometimes visited his predecessor as a schoolboy, but the probability of his becoming the next Lord Saxonstowe was at that time small, and no one had taken much notice of Master Richard Feversham. When he came back to the place as lord and master, what reputation he had was of a sort that scarcely appealed to the country people. He had travelled in some fearsome countries where no other man had ever set foot, and he had written a great book about his adventures, and must therefore be a clever young man. But he was not a soldier, nor a sailor, and he did not particularly care for hunting or shooting, and was therefore somewhat of a hard nut to crack. The honest gentlemen who found fox-hunting the one thing worth living for could scarcely realise that even its undeniable excitements were somewhat tame to a man who had more than once taken part in a hunt in which he was the quarry, and they were disposed to{218} regard the new Viscount Saxonstowe as a bit of a prig, being unconscious that he was in reality a very simple-minded, unaffected young man who was a little bit embarrassed by his title and his wealth. As for their ladies, it was their decided opinion that a young peer of such ancient lineage and such great responsibilities should marry as soon as possible, and each believed that it was Lord Saxonstowe’s bounden duty to choose a wife from one of the old north-country families. In this Saxonstowe agreed with them. He desired a wife, and a wife from the north country, and he knew where to find her, and wanted her so much that it had long been evident to his sober judgment that, failing her, no other woman would ever call him husband. The more he was left alone, the more deeply he sank in the sea of love. And at last he felt that life was too short to be trifled with, and he went back to Sprats and asked her firmly and insistently to marry him.

Sprats was neither hurt nor displeased nor surprised. She listened silently to all he had to say, and she looked at him with her usual frankness when he had finished.

‘I thought we were not to talk of these matters?’ she said. ‘We were to be friends—was there not some sort of compact?’

‘If so, I have broken it,’ he answered—‘not the friendship—that, never!—but the compact. Besides, I don’t remember anything about that. As to talking of this, well, I intend to go on asking you to marry me until you do.’

‘You have not forgotten what I told you?’ she said, eyeing him with some curiosity.

‘Not at all. I have thought a lot about it,’ he answered. ‘I have not only thought, but I have come to a conclusion.’

‘Yes?’ she said, still curious. ‘What conclusion?’

‘That you are deceiving yourself,’ he answered. ‘You think you love Lucian Damerel. I do not doubt that you do, in a certain way, but not in the way in which I would wish you, for instance, to love me, and{219} in which I believe you could and would love me—if you would let yourself.’

Sprats stared at him with growing curiosity and surprise. There was something masterful and lordly about his tone and speech that filled her heart with a great sense of contentment—it was the voice of the superior animal calling to the inferior, of the stronger to the weaker. And she was so strong that she had a great longing to be weak—always providing that something stronger than herself were shielding her weakness.

‘Well?’ was all she could say.

‘You have always felt a sense of protection for him,’ continued Saxonstowe. ‘It was in you from the first—you wanted something to take care of. But isn’t there sometimes a feeling within you that you’d like to be taken care of yourself?’

‘Who taught you all this?’ she asked, with puzzled brows. ‘You seem to have acquired some strange knowledge of late.’

‘I expect it’s instinct, or nature, or something,’ he said. ‘Anyhow, have I spoken the truth?’

‘You don’t expect me to confess the truth to you, do you?’ she answered. ‘You have not yet learned everything, I see.’ She paused and regarded him for some time in silence. ‘I don’t know why,’ she said at last, ‘but this seems as if it were the prelude to a fight. I feel as I used to feel when I fought with Lucian—there was always a lot of talk before the tearing and rending began. I feel talky now, and I also feel that I must fight you. To begin with, just remember that I am a woman and you’re a man. I don’t know anything about men—they’re incomprehensible to me. To begin with, why do you wish to marry me?—you’re the first man who ever did. I want to know why—why—why?’
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