PART I

CHAPTER I

ADVICE

“You ought to get married, Miss Sylvia,” said old Jeffcott, the head gardener, with a wag of his hoary beard.  “You’ll need to be your own mistress now.”

“I should hope I am that anyway,” said, Sylvia with a little laugh.

She stood in the great vinery—­a vivid picture against a background of clustering purple fruit.  The sunset glinted on her tawny hair.  Her red-brown eyes, set wide apart, held a curious look, half indignant, half appealing.

Old Jeffcott surveyed her with loving admiration.  There was no one in the world to compare with Miss Sylvia in his opinion.  He loved the open English courage of her, the high, inborn pride of race.  Yet at the end of the survey he shook his head.

“There’s not room for two mistresses in this establishment, Miss Sylvia,” he said wisely.  “Three years to have been on your own, so to speak, is too long.  You did ought to get married, Miss Sylvia.  You’ll find it’s the only way.”

His voice took on almost a pleading note.  He knew it was possible to go too far.

But the girl facing him was still laughing.  She evidently felt no resentment.

“You see, Jeffcott,” she said, “there’s only one man in the world I could marry.  And he’s not ready for me yet.”

Jeffcott wagged his beard again commiseratingly.  “So you’ve never got over it, Miss Sylvia?  Your feelings is still the same—­after five years?”

“Still the same,” said Sylvia.  There was a momentary challenge in her bright eyes, but it passed.  “It couldn’t be any different,” she said softly.  “No one else could ever come anywhere near him.”

Jeffcott sighed aloud.  “I know he were a nice young gentleman,” he conceded.  “But I’ve seen lots as good before and since.  He weren’t nothing so very extraordinary, Miss Sylvia.”

Sylvia’s look went beyond him, seeming to rest upon something very far away.  “He was to me, Jeffcott,” she said.  “We just—­fitted each other, he and I.”

“And you was only eighteen,” pleaded Jeffcott, “You wasn’t full-grown in those days.”

“No?” A quick sigh escaped her; her look came back to him, and she smiled.  “Well, I am now anyway; and that’s the one thing that hasn’t altered or grown old—­the one thing that never could.”

“Ah, dear!” said old Jeffcott.  “What a pity now as you couldn’t take up with young Mr. Eversley or that Mr. Preston over the way, or—­or—­any of them young gents with a bit of property as might be judged suitable!”

Sylvia’s laugh rang through the vinery, a gay, infectious laugh.

“Oh, really, Jeffcott!  You talk as if I had only got to drop my handkerchief for the whole countryside to rush to pick it up!  I’m not going to take up with anyone, unless it’s Mr. Guy Ranger.  You don’t seem to realize that we’ve been engaged all this time.”