“But it needn’t be made heavier than it is,” Juliet said.  “No, it needn’t.  But it isn’t everyone that sees it in that light.  I’m glad you do anyway, and I’m grateful—­on Robin’s behalf.  Good-bye!”

He lifted his hand again in a farewell salute, and turned away.

Juliet watched him go, watched keenly as he approached Robin, saw the boy’s quick glance at him as he took him by the arm and led him to the gate.  A few seconds later they passed her on the other side of the hedge evidently on their way to the shore, and she heard Robin’s voice as they went by.

“I’m—­sorry now, Dicky,” he said.

She turned her head to catch his brother’s answer, for it did not come immediately and she wondered a little at the delay.

Then, as they drew farther away, she heard Green say, “Why do you say that?”

“She told me to,” said Robin.

She felt her colour rise and heard Green laugh.  They were almost out of earshot before he said, “All right, boy!  I’ll let you off this time.  Don’t do it again!”

She leaned back in her chair, and re-opened her book.  But she did not read for some time.  Somehow she felt glad—­quite unreasonably glad again—­that Robin had been let off.

CHAPTER VII

THE OFFER

“Well, it ain’t none of my business,” said Mrs. Rickett, with a sniff.  “Nor it ain’t yours either.  But did you ever know anyone as wore anything the likes of that before?”

She shook out for her husband’s inspection a filmy garment that had the look of a baby’s robe that had grown up, before spreading it on her kitchen table to iron.

“Ah!” said Rickett, ramming a finger into the bowl of his pipe.  “What sort of a thing is that now?”

“What sort of a thing, man?  Why, a night-dress—­of course!  What d’you think?” Mrs. Rickett chuckled at his ignorance.  “And that flimsy—­why I’m almost afraid to touch it.  It’s the quality, you see.”

“Ah!” said the smith vaguely.

Mrs. Rickett tested the iron near her cheek.  “And it’s only the quality,” she resumed, as she began to use it, “as wears such things as these.  Why, I shouldn’t wonder but what they came from Paris.  They must have cost a mint of money.”

“Ah!” said Rickett again.

“She’s as nice-spoken a young lady as I’ve met,” resumed his wife.  “No pride about her, you know.  She’s just simple and friendly-like.  Yet I’d like to see the man as’d take a liberty with her all the same.”

Rickett pulled at his pipe with a grunt.  When not at work, it was usually his role to sit and listen to his wife’s chatter.

“She ain’t been brought up in a convent,” continued Mrs. Rickett.  “That’s plain to see.  With all the gentle ways of her, she knows how to hold her own.  Young Robin Green, he’s gone just plumb moon-crazy over her, and it wouldn’t surprise me”—­Mrs. Rickett lowered her voice mysteriously—­“but what some day Dick himself was to do the same.”