Innocent : her fancy and his fact. Marie Corelli
are to that bird."
"Oh, poor Cupid! You're jealous of him!"
He moved a little nearer to her.
"Perhaps I am!" And he spoke in a lower tone. "Perhaps I am, Innocent! I grudge him the privilege of lying there on your dear little white breast! I am envious when you kiss him! I want you to kiss ME!"
His voice was tremulous,—he turned up his face audaciously.
She looked at him with a smile.
"I will if you like!" she said. "I should think no more of kissing you than of kissing Cupid!"
He drew back with a gesture of annoyance.
"I wouldn't be kissed at all that way," he said, hotly.
"Why not?"
"Because it's not the right way. A bird is not a man!"
She laughed merrily.
"Nor a man a bird, though he may have a bird's name!" she said. "Oh,
Robin, how clever you are!"
He leaned closer.
"Let Cupid go!" he pleaded,—"I want to ride home on the last load with you alone."
Another little peal of laughter escaped her.
"I declare you think Cupid an actual person!" she said. "If he'll go, he shall. But I think he'll stay."
She loosened her hold of the dove, which, released, gravely hopped up to her shoulder and sat there pruning its wing. She glanced round at it.
"I told you so!" she said,—"He's a fixture."
"I don't mind him so much up there," said Robin, and he ventured to take one of her hands in his own,—"but he always has so much of you; he nestles under your chin and is caressed by your sweet lips,—he has all, and I have,—nothing!"
"You have one hand," said Innocent, with demure gravity.
"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.
"There!" he said, lifting his head and showing an eager face lit by amorous eyes. "Now you know how lovely you are to me! I should like to kiss your mouth like that,—for you have the sweetest mouth in the world! And you have the prettiest hair,—not raw gold which I hate,—but soft brown, with delicious little sunbeams lost in it,—and such a lot of it! I've seen it all down, remember! And your eyes would draw the heart out of any man and send him anywhere,—yes, Innocent!—anywhere,—to Heaven or to Hell!"
She coloured a little.
"That's beautiful talk!" she said,—"It's like poetry, but it isn't true!"
"It is true!" he said, with fond insistence. "And I'll MAKE you love me!"
"Ah, no!" A look of the coldest scorn suddenly passed over her features—"that's not possible. You could never MAKE me do anything! And—it's rude of you to speak in such a way. Please let go my hand!"
He dropped it instantly, and sprang erect.
"All right! I'll leave you to yourself,—and Cupid!" Here he laughed rather bitterly. "What made you give that bird such a name?"
"I found it in a book," she answered,—"It's a name that was given to the god of Love when he was a little boy."
"I know that! Please don't teach me my A.B.C.," said Robin, half-sulkily.
She leaned back laughing, and singing softly:
"Love was once a little boy,
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!
Then 'twas sweet with him to toy,
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!"
Her eyes sparkled in the sun,—a tress of her hair, ruffled by the hay, escaped and flew like a little web of sunbeams against her cheek. He looked at her moodily.
"You might go on with the song," he said,—"'Love is now a little man—'"
"'And a very naughty one!'" she hummed, with a mischievous upward glance.
Despite his inward vexation, he smiled.
"Say what you like, Cupid is a ridiculous name for a dove," he said.
"It rhymes to stupid," she replied, demurely,—"And the rhyme expresses the nature of the bird and—the god!"
"Pooh! You think that clever!"
"I don't! I never said a clever thing in my life. I shouldn't know how. Everything clever has been written over and over again by people in books."
"Hang books!" he exclaimed. "It's always books with you! I wish we had never found that old chest of musty volumes in the panelled room."
"Do you? Then you are sillier than I thought you were. The books taught me all I know,—about love!"
"About love! You don't know what love means!" he declared, trampling the hay he stood upon with impatience. "You read and read, and you get the queerest