He gave her hand an admonitory squeeze.  “I’m not laughing.  You’re not playing the game.  What’s the good of my coming to the house to see you if we never meet?”

“Don’t understand,” said Toby briefly.

“Yes, you do.  Or you can if you try.  You never seem to have any liberty now-a-days.  Is it Maud’s doing or your own?”

Toby laughed again lightly and bafflingly.  “I can do anything I want to do,” she said.

“Oh, can you?” Bunny pounced.  “Then you’ve got to meet me sometimes away from the rest.  See?  Come!  That’s only fair.”

Toby made a face at him.  “Suppose I don’t want to?” she said.

He laughed into her eyes.  “Don’t tell me that!  When and where?”

She laughed back.  He was hard to resist.  “I don’t know.  I’m too busy.”

“Rot!” said Bunny.

“You’re very rude,” she remarked.

“I’ll be ruder when I get the chance,” he laughed.  “Listen, I want to see you alone very badly.  You’re not going to let me down.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” said Toby.

But she could not look with severity into the handsome young face that was bent to hers.  It was not in her to repulse a friendly influence.  She had to respond.

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” said Bunny, marking her weakening with cheery assurance.  “You’ll take Chops for a walk to-morrow evening through the Burchester Woods.  You know that gate by the larch copse?  It’s barely a mile across the down.  Be there at seven, and perhaps—­who knows?—­perhaps—­Chops may meet somebody he’s rather fond of.”

“And again perhaps he mayn’t,” said Toby, suppressing a dimple.

“Oh, I say, that’s shabby!  You’ll give him the chance anyhow?”

The pleading note sounded in Bunny’s voice.  Toby suddenly dropped her eyes.  She looked as if she were bracing herself to refuse.

Bunny saw and quickly grappled with the danger.  “Give him the chance!” he urged softly into her ear.  “You won’t be sorry—­afterwards.”

She did not lift her eyes, but somehow the enchantment held.  By a bold stroke he had entered her defences, and she could not for the moment drive him out.  She was silent.

“You’ll come?” whispered Bunny.

They were nearing a little group of ponies that were being held in readiness at the end of the field.  Toby quickened her pace.

He kept beside her, but he did not speak again.  And perhaps his silence moved her more than speech, for she gave a little impulsive turn towards him and threw him her sudden, boyish smile.

“All right.  We’ll come,” she said.

“Hooray!” crowed Bunny softly.

“But I shan’t stay long,” she warned him.  “And if I don’t like it, I shall never come again.”

“You will like it,” said Bunny with confidence.

“I wonder,” said Toby with her chin in the air.

CHAPTER III