She wore a dress of thin, creamy material, which, whilst seeming to cumber her as little as garments could, yet fitted closely enough to declare the healthy beauty of her form.  The dark green garland, for which she bent a little, became her admirably.

‘I pictured it in my letter,’ said Tarrant, ’the letter you never got.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Oh, I burnt it.’

‘Tell me what was in it.’

‘All sorts of things—­a long letter.’

‘I think that’s all nonsense about forgetting my address.’

‘Mere truth.  In fact, I never knew it.’

‘Be so good as to tell me,’ she spoke as she walked on before him, ’what you meant by your behaviour that morning before you went to London.’

‘But how did I behave?’

‘Very strangely.’

Tarrant affected not to understand; but, when she again turned, Nancy saw a mischievous smile on his face.

‘A bit of nonsense.—­Shall I tell you?’ He stepped near, and suddenly caught both her hands,—­one of them was trailing her sunshade.  ‘Forgive me in advance—­will you?’

‘I don’t know about that.’  And she tried, though faintly, to get free.

‘But I will make you—­now, refuse!’

His lips had just touched hers, just touched and no more.  Rosy red, she trembled before him with drooping eyelids.

‘It meant nothing at all, really,’ he pursued, his voice at its softest.  ’A sham trial—­to see whether I was hopelessly conquered or not.  Of course I was.’

Nancy shook her head.

’You dare to doubt it?—­I understand now what the old poet meant, when he talked of bees seeking honey on his lady’s lips.  That fancy isn’t so artificial as it seemed.’

’That’s all very pretty’—­she spoke between quick breaths, and tried to laugh—­’but you have thrown my hat on the ground.  Give it me, and take the ivy for yourself.’

‘I am no Bacchus.’  He tossed the wreath aside.  ’Take the hat; I like you in it just as well.—­You shall have a girdle of woodbine, instead.’

‘I don’t believe your explanation,’ said Nancy.

‘Not believe me?’

With feigned indignation, he moved to capture her again; but Nancy escaped.  Her hat in her hand, she darted forward.  A minute’s run brought her into the open space, and there, with an exclamation of surprise, she stopped.  Tarrant, but a step or two behind her, saw at almost the same moment the spectacle which had arrested her flight.  Before them stood two little donkeys munching eagerly at a crop of rosy-headed thistles.  They—­the human beings—­looked at each other; Tarrant burst into extravagant laughter, and Nancy joined him.  Neither’s mirth was spontaneous; Nancy’s had a note of nervous tension, a ring of something like recklessness.

‘Where can they come from?’ she asked.

’They must have strayed a long way.  I haven’t seen any farm or cottage.—­But perhaps some one is with them.  Wait, I’ll go on a little, and see if some boy is hanging about.’