’Well, anyhow, you’re a gentleman.  I’ve often wished I was a lady.  It must be so nice ter wear fine clo’es an’ never have ter do any work all day long.’

Willoughby thought it innocent of the girl to say this; it reminded him of his own notion as a child—­that kings and queens put on their crowns the first thing on rising in the morning.  His cordiality rose another degree.

‘If being a gentleman means having nothing to do,’ said he, smiling, ’I can certainly lay no claim to the title.  Life isn’t all beer and skittles with me, any more than it is with you.  Which is the better reason for enjoying the present moment, don’t you think?  Suppose, now, like a kind little girl, you were to show me the way to Beacon Point, which you say is so pretty?’

She required no further persuasion.  As he walked beside her through the upland fields where the dusk was beginning to fall, and the white evening moths to emerge from their daytime hiding-places, she asked him many personal questions, most of which he thought fit to parry.  Taking no offence thereat, she told him, instead, much concerning herself and her family.  Thus he learned her name was Esther Stables, that she and her people lived Whitechapel way; that her father was seldom sober, and her mother always ill; and that the aunt with whom she was staying kept the post-office and general shop in Orton village.  He learned, too, that Esther was discontented with life in general; that, though she hated being at home, she found the country dreadfully dull; and that, consequently, she was extremely glad to have made his acquaintance.  But what he chiefly realized when they parted was that he had spent a couple of pleasant hours talking nonsense with a girl who was natural, simple-minded, and entirely free from that repellently protective atmosphere with which a woman of the ‘classes’ so carefully surrounds herself.  He and Esther had ‘made friends’ with the ease and rapidity of children before they have learned the dread meaning of ‘etiquette’, and they said good night, not without some talk of meeting each other again.

Obliged to breakfast at a quarter to eight in town, Willoughby was always luxuriously late when in the country, where he took his meals also in leisurely fashion, often reading from a book propped up on the table before him.  But the morning after his meeting with Esther Stables found him less disposed to read than usual.  Her image obtruded itself upon the printed page, and at length grew so importunate he came to the conclusion the only way to lay it was to confront it with the girl herself.