I was dispatched for glasses, and after emptying the bottles uncle proposed a game of tennis first, while the light lasted, and tea afterwards.  This proposition being carried with acclamation, we proceeded to the tennis court.  Harold came too—­he had apparently altered his intention of going home immediately.

There were strawberries to be had in the orchard, also some late cherries, so uncle ordered me to go and get some.  I procured a basket, and willingly agreed to obey him.  Mr Goodchum offered to accompany me, but Harold stepped forward saying he would go, in such a resolute tragic manner that Goodchum winked audaciously, saying waggishly, “Behold, the hero descends into the burning mine!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ah, For One Hour of Burning Love,
’tis Worth an Age of Cold Respect!

We walked in perfect silence, Harold not offering to carry my little basket.  I did not dare lift my eyes, as something told me the face of the big man would not be pleasant to look upon just then.  I twirled the ring he had given me round and round my finger.  I occasionally put it on, wearing the stones on the palm-side of my finger, so that it would not he taken for other than one of two or three aunt Helen had lent me, saying I was at liberty to use them while at Caddagat, if it gave me any pleasure.

The Caddagat orchard contained six acres, and being a narrow enclosure, and the cherries growing at the extreme end from the house, it took us some time to reach them.  I led the way to our destination—­a secluded nook where grape-vines clambered up fig-trees, and where the top of gooseberry bushes met the lower limbs of cherry-trees.  Blue and yellow lupins stood knee-high, and strawberries grew wild among them.  We had not uttered a sound, and I had not glanced at my companion.  I stopped; he wheeled abruptly and grasped my wrist in a manner which sent the basket whirling from my hand.  I looked up at his face, which was blazing with passion, and dark with a darker tinge than Nature and the sun had given it, from the shapely swelling neck, in its soft well-turned-down collar, to where the stiff black hair, wet with perspiration, hung on the wide forehead.

“Unhand me, sir!” I said shortly, attempting to wrench myself free, but I might as well have tried to pull away from a lion.

“Unhand me!” I repeated.

For answer he took a firmer hold, in one hand seizing my arm above the elbow, and gripping my shoulder with the other so tightly that, through my flimsy covering, his strong fingers bruised me so severely that in a calmer moment I would have squirmed and cried out with pain.

“How dare you touch me!” He drew me so closely to him that, through his thin shirt—­the only garment on the upper part of his figure—­I could feel the heat of his body, and his big heart beating wildly.

At last! at last!  I had waked this calm silent giant into life.  After many an ineffectual struggle I had got at a little real love or passion, or call it by any name—­something wild and warm and splendidly alive that one could feel, the most thrilling, electric, and exquisite sensation known.