“But there is not a better family in England than the Arleighs of Beechgrove, Philippa.  It would be terrible for him—­such a mesalliance; surely he will never dream of it.”

“She is beautiful, graceful, gifted, and good,” was the rejoinder.  “But it is useless for us to argue about the matter.  He has said nothing about marrying her; he has only called her his ideal.”

“I cannot understand it,” said poor Lady Peters.  “It seems strange to me.”

She would have thought it stranger still if she had followed them and heard what Lord Arleigh was saying.

He had followed Madaline to the southern wall, whereon the luscious peaches and apricots grew.  He found her, as the duchess had intimated, busily engaged in choosing the ripest and best.  He thought he had never seen a fairer picture than this golden-haired girl standing by the green leaves and rich fruit.  He thought of Tennyson’s “Gardener’s daughter.”

                               “One arm aloft——­
    Gowned in pure white that fitted to the shape—­
    Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. 
    The full day dwelt on her brows and sunned
    Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe bloom,
    And doubled his own warmth against her lips,
    And on the beauteous wave of such a breast
    As never pencil drew.  Half light, half shade,
    She stood, a sight to make an old man young.”

He repeated the lines as he stood watching her, and then he went nearer and called: 

“Madaline!”

Could he doubt that she loved him?  Her fair face flushed deepest crimson; but, instead of turning to him, she moved half coyly, half shyly away.

“How quick you are,” he said, “to seize every opportunity of evading me!  Do you think you can escape me, Madaline?  Do you think my love is so weak, so faint, so feeble, that it can be pushed aside lightly by your will?  Do you think that, if you tried to get to the other end of the world, you could escape me?”

Half blushing, half laughing, trembling, yet with a happy light in her blue eyes, she said: 

“I think you are more terrible than any one I know.”

“I am glad that you are growing frightened, and are willing to own that you have a master—­that is as it should be.  I want to talk to you, Madaline.  You evade me lest you should be compelled to speak to me; you lower those beautiful eyes of yours, lest I should be made happy by looking into them.  If you find it possible to avoid my presence, to run away from me, you do.  I am sure to woo you, to win you, to make you my sweet, dear wife—­to make you happier, I hope, than any woman has ever been before—­and you try to evade me, fair, sweet, cruel Madaline!”

“I am afraid of you, Lord Arleigh,” she said, little dreaming how much the naive confession implied.

“Afraid of me!  That is because you see that I am quite determined to win you.  I can easily teach you how to forget all fear.”