ore
intimate, he studied his callow appearance in the glass from various
points of view, and decided that his nose might have been a little
smaller with advantage....

Directly after dinner he went out, and by the shortest path to the
allotment lane, telling himself he did not care if he met Bonover
forthwith in the street. He did not know precisely what he intended to
do, but he was quite clear that he meant to see the girl he had met in
the avenue. He knew he should see her. A sense of obstacles merely
braced him and was pleasurable. He went up the stone steps out of the
lane to the stile that overlooked the Frobishers, the stile from which
he had watched the Frobisher bedroom. There he seated himself with his
arms, folded, in full view of the house.

That was at ten minutes to two. At twenty minutes to three he was
still sitting there, but his hands were deep in his jacket pockets,
and he was scowling and kicking his foot against the step with an
impatient monotony. His needless glasses had been thrust into his
waistcoat pocket--where they remained throughout the afternoon--and
his cap was tilted a little back from his forehead and exposed a wisp
of hair. One or two people had gone down the lane, and he had
pretended not to see them, and a couple of hedge-sparrows chasing each
other along the side of the sunlit, wind-rippled field had been his
chief entertainment. It is unaccountable, no doubt, but he felt angry
with her as the time crept on. His expression lowered.

He heard someone going by in the lane behind him. He would not look
round--it annoyed him to think of people seeing him in this
position. His once eminent discretion, though overthrown, still made
muffled protests at the afternoon's enterprise. The feet down the lane
stopped close at hand.

"Stare away," said Lewisham between his teeth. And then began
mysterious noises, a violent rustle of hedge twigs, a something like a
very light foot-tapping.

Curiosity boarded Lewisham and carried him after the briefest
struggle. He looked round, and there she was, her back to him,
reaching after the spiky blossoming blackthorn that crested the
opposite hedge. Remarkable accident! She had not seen him!

In a moment Lewisham's legs were flying over the stile. He went down
the steps in the bank with such impetus that it carried him up into
the prickly bushes beside her. "Allow me," he said, too excited to see
she was not astonished.

"Mr. Lewisham!" she said