Reuben came away from Cheat Land with odd feelings of annoyance, perplexity, and exhilaration. Alice Jury was queer, and she had insulted him, nevertheless those ten minutes spent with her had left him tingling all over with a strange excitement.

He could not account for it. Women had excited him before, but merely physically. He took it for granted that they had minds and souls like men, but he had not thought much about that aspect of them or allowed it to enter his calculations. Of late he had scarcely troubled about women at all, having something better to think of.

Now he found himself thrown into a kind of dazzle by Alice Jury. He could not explain it. Her personal[Pg 214] beauty was negligible—"a liddle stick of a thing," he called her; their conversation had been limited almost entirely to her tactless questions and his forbearing answers.

"She ?un\'t my sort," he mumbled as he walked home, "she ?un\'t at all my sort. Dudn\'t know where Odiam wur—never heard of Boarzell—oh, yes, seems as she remembered hearing something when I t?ald her"—and Reuben\'s lip curled ironically.

He had not told her of his ambitions with regard to Boarzell, and now he found himself wishing that he had done so. He had been affronted by her ignorance, but as his indignation cooled he longed to confide in her. Why, he could not say, for unmistakably she "wasn\'t his sort"; it was not likely that she would sympathise, and yet he wanted to pour all the treasures of his hope into her indifference. He had never felt like this towards anyone before.

He spent the day restlessly, and the next morning walked over to Cheat Land before half-past ten. Alice Jury opened the door, and looked surprised to see him.

"You said you were coming at eleven. I\'m afraid father\'s out again."

"I wur passing this way, so thought I\'d call in on the chance," said Reuben guiltily—"I d?an\'t mind waiting."

She called a long-legged boy who was weeding among the turnips, and bade him go over to Puddingcake and fetch the master. Then she led the way to the kitchen, which smelled deliciously of baking bread.

"You don\'t mind if I go on with my baking? I\'ve twelve loaves in the oven."

"Oh, no," said Reuben, sitting in yesterday\'s chair, and gazing up at the Rossetti.

"Do you like pictures?" asked Alice, thumping dough.

"Some," said Reuben, "but I like \'em coloured best."
 
"I paint a little myself," said Alice—"when I\'ve time."

"Wot sort o\' things do you paint?"

"Oh, landscapes mostly. That\'s mine"—and she pointed to a little water-c............