“But no heart with it!” he said, wistfully.  “Innocent, can you never love me?”

She was silent, looking at him critically,—­then she gave a little sigh.

“I’m afraid not!  But I have often thought about it.”

“You have?”—­and his eyes grew very tender.

“Oh yes, often!  You see, it isn’t your fault at all.  You are—­ well!”—­here she surveyed him with a whimsical air of admiration, —­“you are quite a beautiful man!  You have a splendid figure and a good face, and kind eyes and well-shaped feet and hands,—­and I like the look of you just now with that open collar and that gleam of sunlight in your curly hair—­and your throat is almost white, except for a touch of sunburn, which is rather becoming!—­ especially with that crimson silk tie!  I suppose you put that tie on for effect, didn’t you?”

He flushed, and laughed lightly.

“Naturally!  To please you!”

“Really?  How thoughtful of you!  Well, you are charming,—­and I shouldn’t mind kissing you at all.  But it wouldn’t be for love.”

“Wouldn’t it?  What would it be for, then?”

Her face lightened up with the illumination of an inward mirth and mischief.

“Only because you look pretty!” she answered.

He threw aside her hand with an angry gesture of impatience.

“You want to make a fool of me!” he said, petulantly.

“I’m sure I don’t!  You are just lovely, and I tell you so.  That is not making a fool of you!”

“Yes, it is!  A man is never lovely.  A woman may be.”

“Well, I’m not,” said Innocent, placidly.  “That’s why I admire the loveliness of others.”

“You are lovely to me,” he declared, passionately.

She smiled.  There was a touch of compassion in the smile.

“Poor Robin!” she said.

At that moment the hidden goddess in her soul arose and asserted her claim to beauty.  A rare indefinable charm of exquisite tenderness and fascination seemed to environ her small and delicate personality with an atmosphere of resistless attraction.  The man beside her felt it, and his heart beat quickly with a thrilling hope of conquest.

“So you pity me!” he said,—­“Pity is akin to love.”

“But kinsfolk seldom agree,” she replied.  “I only pity you because you are foolish.  No one but a very foolish fellow would think me lovely.”

He raised himself a little and peered over the edge of the hay-load to see if there was any sign of the men returning with Roger, but there was no one in the field now except the venerable personage he called Uncle Hugo, who was still smoking away his thoughts, as it were, in a dream of tobacco.  And he once more caught the hand he had just let go and covered it with kisses.