It was this quality in him, this dynamic force, restrained yet always somehow in action, that had affected Juliet so strangely in the beginning of their acquaintance.  Like these rough miners and fisher-folk she could not have said wherein the attraction lay, but she recognized in him that inner fire called genius, and it drew her unaccountably, irresistibly.  Whatever the sphere to which he had been born, he was a man created to lead, to overcome obstacles, to wrest victory from failure,—­a man who possessed the rare combination of a highly sensitive temperament and a practically invincible courage—­a man who could handle the great forces of life with the fearless certainty of the born conqueror.

Yes, he attracted her, undoubtedly he attracted her.  He stirred her to an interest which she had believed herself too old, too jaded with the ways of the world, ever to feel again.  But she did not want to yield to the attraction.  She wanted to hold aloof for a space.  She had come to this quiet corner of the world in search of peace.  She wanted to avoid the problems of life, to get back her poise, to become an onlooker and no longer a competitor in the maddening race from which she had so lately withdrawn herself.  She was willing to be interested, she already was deeply interested, but only as a spectator, so she told herself.  She would not be drawn in against her will.  She would stand aside and watch.

It was in this mood that she drove off with the squire on the way to the open-air concert on the High Shale bluff on that magic June evening.  Mrs. Fielding was too weary after the many emotions of the day to accompany them, but they left her in a tranquil frame of mind, and the squire was in an unusually good humour.  Though he had small liking for the High Shale village people, it pleased him that Juliet should take an interest in Green’s enterprises, eccentric though they might be.  And he considered that she deserved a treat after her diplomatic handling of a very difficult situation that morning.

“Might as well call and see if Dick would like a lift,” he said, as they neared the gates.  “We’ve got to pass his door.  I’ll send Jack in.”

But when they stopped at the school-house gate, a humped, familiar figure was leaning upon it, and Jack flung an imperious question without descending.

The squire’s face darkened at the sight.  “Here’s that unspeakable baboon Robin!” he growled.

Robin paid about as much attention to his brother’s curt query as he might have bestowed upon the buzzing of a fly.  His dark eyes below his shaggy thatch of hair were fixed, deeply shining, upon Juliet.

Jack muttered an impatient ejaculation under his breath and flung himself out of the car.  Before Juliet could speak a word to intervene, he had given the gate on which Robin leant a push that sent the boy backwards with considerable force on the grass while he himself went up the path to the house at a run.