"And then, if I
settle down at Barford, I'll come out now and then, if you'll let me."
"Let you!" exclaimed Harper. "By Jove!--we're only too glad to have
anybody out here--aren't we, Nesta?"
"We shall always be glad to see Mr. Collingwood," said Nesta.
Collingwood went away with that last intimation warm in his memory. He
had an idea that the girl meant what she said--and for a moment he was
sorry that he was going to India. He might have settled down at Barford
there and then, and--but at that he laughed at himself.
"A young woman with several thousands a year of her own!" he said. "Of
course, she'll marry some big pot in the county. They feel a little
lonely, those two, just now, because everything's new to them, and
they're new to their changed circumstances. But when I get back--ah!--I
guess they'll have got plenty of people around them."
And he determined, being a young man of sense, not to think any
more--for already he had thought a good deal of Nesta Mallathorpe, until
he returned from his Indian travels. Let him attend to his business, and
leave possibilities until they came nearer.
"All the same." he mused, as he drew near the town again, "I'm pretty
sure I shall come back here next spring--I feel like it."
He called in at Eldrick's office on his way to the hotel, to take some
documents which had been preparing for him.
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