Bob, the gardener, scything grass in the Rush Heath garden, saw Jasper and Mr. Jeremy Winter come out of the house while the dew still lay upon the grass. Jasper had a pair of foils under his arm. The two gentlemen stripped off their coats in the long walk, rolled up their shirt-sleeves and began to fence. They were at it for an hour or more in short, sharp bursts, Jeremy pulling the younger man up from time to time, and making him repeat some series of parries and passes. The clinking of the foils made a thin and constant tingle of sound, broken now and again by Jeremy's deep and imperturbable voice. There was no blood in the battle, but the great poppies in the borders were the colour of blood.
Jeremy was not ill-pleased with these practise bouts.
"You will soon have a quick point again. The man behind the sword's the thing. Nerve, and a devilish sharp eye."
"You will warrant me sound in a week, Jeremy?"
"Not far off, not far off. Don't forget the pistols, though. And look you, lad, the game is to play up to the vanity of a man like De Rothan. Fencing's a subtle art. 'Tain't all wrist and sinew. There's mind in it, personality, soul. It's a picking to bits of human nature. You don't fight a man's sword alone, but his grit, or his conceit, and his damned flourishes."
"You are a cunning master, Jeremy."
"Why, confound me, half life is acting. Act when you fight, lad. I could play a man like De Rothan the veriest clown's game, make him think me a bungler, and run him through before he had the sense to take me seriously. That's what fighting should be, brain as well as beef."
They went in to breakfast, a silent meal so far as Jasper was concerned. Jeremy Winter watched him with affectionate amusement. A man of fifty renews his youth in seeing a young man in love.
"I have it, Jeremy!"
"What, lad?"
"An idea."
It did not unfold itself, for there was a sudden violent hammering on the floor of the room above. Mr. Christopher Benham was using the heel of his shoe to attract attention.
"Hallo, the squire's awake."
"I'll go up and see what he wants. I say, Jeremy, not a word about this."
"Not a word. He'd curse me out of the country for egging you on to take risks."
"Besides, there's Rose. You remember Rose?"
Jeremy drew in his lips.
"Remember her, by gad! We always quarrelled, Rose and I. So he wants you to marry her?"
"I don't know. Rose can twist him round her finger. I don't want her meddling in my affairs."
"The less a woman knows the better."
Jasper spent the morning practising with his pistols in the little meadow by Ten Acre Wood. He chose the meadow because it was a mile or more from the house, and the oaks of the wood smothered the reports of the pistol. He did not wish the sound to come to Mr. Christopher's ears, for he was in an intensely irritable state, and very feeble. The most trivial thing would send him into a gouty rage, and his rages left him breathless and inarticulate.
After dinner Jasper ordered Jack Bumpstead to saddle Devil Dick. Jeremy Winter stood smoking a pipe in the porch, and watched him mount and ride out.
Jasper headed straight toward Stonehanger. His face had a set and very determined look. He was out on a grave business, and on his guard against sentiment and romance.
It was still and sultry, and there was a fog at sea. Grey haze covered the hills, and the long grass in the fields hardly so much as stirred. Stonehanger Common lay in the full, thundery glare of the afternoon sunlight. Warm, dry perfumes rose from it, and the gorse looked a dusty green. Jasper followed the lane, and, pushing Devil Dick through a gap in the hedge, approached Stonehanger from the western side. His plan of campaign promised to adapt itself to the identity of the person who chanced to meet the first attack.
As it happened, he came upon David Barfoot by the gate that led into the rough meadow where Jenny the cow was turned out to grass. The coincidence faced Jasper with two alternatives. He made a sign to David, and the old man came and stood by Devil Dick's right shoulder.
"Is Miss Nance at home?"
David watched Jasper's lips.
"She be out, Master Benham."
"And Mr. Durrell?"
"Would you be wanting to see him?"
David's sceptical sincerity stirred Jasper's inclinations. He discovered a very human desire to set eyes on Nance. Durrell! Barfoot was right. Anthony Durrell could go to the devil.
He was surprised to find David Barfoot so ready to help him.
"Do you know where she is?"
"She be gone down t' sea lane."
"Straight on?"
"Sure."
"I might meet her if I rode on down the lane." Barfoot grinned approvingly.
"I'm telling ye," he said.
The lane went winding down between furze-clad banks, a green way powdered with wild flowers. About half a mile from Stonehanger House the lane broadened out into a kind of grassy stream that meandered as it pleased. Jasper reined in on a piece of rising ground, and scanned the land ahead of him. Two furlongs to the south stood a group of may-trees. They were smothered in blossom, and their massed floweriness made them look like a great heap of white wool or of snow.
Jasper caught sight of a figure moving on the outskirts of these trees, a figure that loitered, and reached up to break off the flowering sprays. He had ridden to Stonehanger convinced that he could hold himself well in hand and that he could talk to Nance as dispassionately as he would have talked to his cowman's grandmother. But when he saw that figure down by the may-trees, Jasper knew why he hated De Rothan, and why he was trying to compromise with Nance.
He rode on, rather slowly, stiffening his upper lip as though he were in for a life-and-death tussle and not for a scene with a mere girl. Jasper had planned out what he would say, and how he would say it. He had stalked up and down the Rush Heath rose-walk, putting his emotions in order, and choosing his texts.
Something spoiled all that. It was his own sincerity, and the face and figure of the girl leaning through the foliage of a may-tree, and looking at him with widely opened eyes. This particular tree grew hollowed out on the inside, its lower branches lying like so many ledges with bands of shadow in between them. The long grass was all white and gold with buttercups and moon-faced daisies.
Jasper lifted his hat.
"David Barfoot told me I might find you down the lane."
His sudden appearing had thrown Nance's thoughts into confusion. She had been thinking about him, and he had startled the intimate inwardness of her thoughts. She was too conscious of their last meeting and the way she had rebuffed him.
She came out from amid the may boughs with a troubled shadowiness of the eyes. A sheaf of the white blossom lay in the hollow of her left arm. Perplexity is apt to simulate coldness and pride. She looked cold and white and upon the defensive.
The silence irked them both. They took refuge in vague superficialities.
"Fine trees, these. They looked like a pile of snow in the distance."
"Yes. I love the smell of may blossom."
"Scents carry one back to all sorts of memories."
"I know. I always like a bowl of wild flowers in my room."
"Are you going back to Stonehanger?"
She threw a quick and watchful look at him.
"Yes."
"Then I will turn back with you."
She seemed uneasy and perplexed. The half-scared look in her dark eyes touched him. What was she afraid of, and why did she glance at him in that queer, disturbing way? He began to relent, to lose himself in the world of her presence.
"You know that—my father——"
"I know that he does not want me at Stonehanger."
He dismounted, and set himself at her side.
"Then, if you know that——"
"Yes, but if you forbid a thing, it drives a man to do it. Besides——"
He found himself looking into her eyes, searching them with sudden impetuous passion. She glanced away, reddening, the bunch of may blossom crushed against her bosom. A thorn pricked her arm, but it was part of the pain of her perplexity.
She seemed to cast about for words.
"We lead such a lonely life, and father does not like strangers."
"Is that why you were so hard on me?"
"When?"
"Oh, you remember."
He was driving her into a corner, and it was impossible for him not to see her too palpable distress. It both troubled and angered him, pointing toward two possible explanations.
"You remember the night you rescued me out of the lane?"
"Yes."
"Well, you were very good to me—then. What made all this difference?"
"Father does not like strangers."
"But is that enough to make you treat a man as though——"
She broke in upon him, white and hurried.
"Mr. Benham, don't——"
"Nance, why won't you tell me the reason?"
"I can't."
"I'll take it well. It might help something pretty serious that I have to say to you."
She gave him a startled look, as though suspecting some other method of attack.
"You are so masterful!"
"No, no. You won't help me—whereas I have ridden over to help you."
"What do you mean?"
"Tell me what made you treat me as you did."
She lifted her chin, and showed him a clear and obstinate profile.
"No, I will not."
"You won't help me!"
"If you have come to strike bargains——"
"Nance, you drive a man into being angry."
"What right have you to be angry?"
"My own right."
"Who gave it you?"
"A man seizes it. Do you think I don't hold myself as good as that French fellow De Rothan?"
She paused, and looked at him half-warningly.
"You try to seize too much. The Chevalier de Rothan is my father's friend. I——"
"You——"
"I have nothing more to say."
"I have. It is what I came for. And it concerns your good friend De Rothan."
She flashed her eyes at him, mistaking his grim sarcasm. They were on the edge of a quarrel, and very near to those bitter words that rise to the lips of passion.
"I think that you and I are better apart."
"As you please. But I have not had my say—yet."
"Oh, you are unbearable!"
"One is not thanked for telling the truth. I came here to warn you that the whole business is discovered."
She swung round and faced him, holding up an impatient and restive head.
"Do all men talk behind each other's backs? What are you hinting at?"
Jasper looked at her stubbornly.
"How much do you know, Nance? By George, you look innocent enough!"
"What do you mean?"
"The Chevalier de Rothan is a French spy."
"Mr. Benham!"
"You have said that your father is his friend."
"Oh!"
"I will not use the word 'spy' when speaking of your father."