She did not hurry the ponies, being anxious not to appear to be tearing
after her offended swain.

"The evening is the pleasantest time to be out, this weather," she
said, lolling back in her seat. "And I'm sure I don't want to look at
dinner after such a lunch as I have eaten. I don't know how you feel."

"I feel the same," he assured her, with truth.

So, for her own purposes, she made their drive half as long again as it
need have been. And was so friendly, so free, so intimate!--leading
that poor innocent to the belief that his great rival was already
virtually out of his way. He was an unsophisticated sailor-lad, who,
with that rival's help, had reached a certain stage and crisis--
another one--of his man's life; and--let us be honest in our
diagnosis--the bubbles of Mr Thornycroft's fine champagne still ran in
his blood and brightened his brain, lifting him above the prosaic
ground-level where a craven timidity would have smothered him. Not
touching the balance of his wits, be it understood; just
heartening him--no more.

Twice and thrice she branched off from the road to show him something
that could well have waited for another day. She was imprudent enough
to introduce him to so sentimental a spot as the family cemetery--
established at a time when there were only Dalzells and Pennycuicks to
feed it. "Their shepherds were killed by the blacks," said Deb, as she
pushed the ponies up to the wall, and he rose in the carriage to look
over the top, "and they buried them here, marking the place with a pile
of stones. There were other deaths, and they enclosed the piece of