She was a lovely, loveable
girl, nothing more. How would she greet him when they met presently on
the tennis lawn? With tears and entreaties, and pretty little
deprecating speeches, irresolution, timidity, vacillation, perhaps;
hardly with heroic resolve to act and dare for his sake.
There was no one on the tennis lawn when he went there, though the hour
was close at hand at which Lesbia had promised to give him his answer.
He sat down in one of the low chairs, glad to rest after his long ramble
having had no refreshment but a bottle of soda-water and a biscuit at
the cottage by Easedale Tarn. He waited, calmly as to outward seeming,
but with a heavy heart.
'If it were Mary now whom I loved, I should have little fear of the
issue,' he thought, weighing his sweetheart's character, as he weighed
his chances of success. 'That young termagant would defy the world for
her lover.'
He sat in the summer silence for nearly half-an-hour, and still there
was no sign of Lady Lesbia. Her satin-lined workbasket, with the work
thrown carelessly across it, was still on the rustic table, just as she
had left it when they went to the pine wood.
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