stood still and aghast in the sandy yard; they had wandered to the far side of it, where the kitchen and the laundry stood cheek-by-jowl with the wood-heap between them, and their back-walls to the six-wire fence dividing the yard from the plantation of young pines which bordered it upon three sides.
"You were in a passion," said Miss Pryse, smiling gravely. "There's nothing in this world that I admire more than a passion – it's so uncommon. So are you! There, I owed you a pretty speech, you know! Do you mind giving me your arm, Mr. Engelhardt?"
But Engelhardt was gazing absently at the girl, and the road between ear and mind was choked with a multitude of new sensations. Her sudden request made no impression upon him, until he saw her stamping her foot in the sand. Then, and awkwardly enough, he held out his arm to her, and her firm hand caught in it impatiently.
"How slow you are to assist a lady! Yet I feel sure that you come from the old country?"
"I do; but I have never had much to do with ladies."
The piano-tuner sighed.
"Well, it's all right; only I wanted you to take my arm for Monty Gilroy's benefit. He's just come out on to the veranda. Don't look round. This will rile him more than anything."
"But why?"
"Why? Oh, because he showed you the hoof; and when a person does that, he never likes to see another person being civil to the same person. See? Then if you don't, you'd better stand here and work it out while I run into the kitchen to speak to Mrs. Potter about your room."
"But I'm not going to stay!" the piano-tuner cried, excitedly.
"Now what are you giving us, Mr. Engelhardt? Of course you are going to stay. You're going to stay and tune my poor old piano. Why, your horse was run out hours ago!"
"But I can't face those men again – "
"What rubbish!"
"After the way I made a fool of myself this evening!"
"It was they who made fools of themselves. They'll annoy you no more, I promise you. In any case, they all go back to the shed to-morrow evening; it's seven miles away, and they only come in for Sunday. You needn't start on the piano before Monday, if you don't like."
"Oh, no, I'll do it to-morrow," Engelhardt said, moodily. He now felt bitterly certain that he should never make friends with the young men of Taroomba, and shamefully thankful to think that there would be a set occupation to keep him out of their way for the whole of the morrow.
"Very well, then; wait where you are for two twos."
Engelhardt waited. The kitchen-door had closed upon Miss Naomi Pryse; there was no sense in watching that any longer. So the piano-tuner's eyes climbed over the waterspout, scaled the steep corrugated roof, and from the wide wooden chimney leapt up to the moon. It was at the full. The white clear light hit the young man between his expressive eyes, and still he chose to face it. It gave to the delicate eager face an almost ethereal pallor; and as he gazed on without flinching, the raised head was proudly carried, and the little man looked tall. To one whom he did not hear when she lifted the kitchen-latch and opened the door, he seemed a different being; she watched him for some moments before she spoke.
"Well, Mr. Engelhardt?"
"Well," said he, coming down from the moon with an absent smile, and slowly.
"I have been watching you for quite a minute. I believe it would have been an hour if I hadn't spoken. I wish I hadn't! We're going to put you in that little building over there – we call it the 'barracks.' You'll be next door to Tom Chester, and he'll take care of you. There's no occasion to thank me; you can tell me what you've been thinking about instead."
"I wasn't thinking at all."
"Now, Mr. Engelhardt!" said Naomi, holding up her finger reprovingly. "If you weren't thinking, I should like to know what you were doing?"
"I was waiting for you."
"I know you were. It was very good of you. But you were smiling, too, and I want to know the joke."
"Was I really smiling?"
"Haven't I told you so? Have you signed the pledge against smiles? You look glum enough for anything now."
"Yes?"
"Very much yes! I wish to goodness you'd smile again."
"Oh, I'll do anything you like." He forced up the corners of his mouth, but it was not a smile; his eyes ran into hers like bayonets.
"Then give me your arm again," she said, "and let me tell you that I'm very much surprised at you for requiring to be told that twice."
"I'm not accustomed to ladies," Engelhardt explained once more.
"That's all right. I'm not one, you know. I'm going to negotiate this fence. Will you have the goodness to turn your back?"
Engelhardt did so, and saw afar off in the moonlit veranda the lowering solitary figure of the manager, Gilroy.
"Yes, he sees us all right," Miss Pryse remarked from the other side of the fence. "It'll do him good. Come you over, and we'll make his beard curl!"
The piano-tuner looked at her doubtfully, but only for one moment. The next he also was over the fence and by her side, and she was leading him into the heart of the pines, her strong kind hand within his arm.
"We'll just have a little mouch round," she said, confidentially. "You needn't be frightened."
"Frightened!" he echoed, defiantly. The hosts of darkness could not have frightened such a voice.
"You see, I'm the boss, and I'm obliged to show it sometimes."
"I see."
"And you have given me an opportunity of showing it pretty plainly."
"Oh!"
"Consequently, I'm very much obliged to you; and I do hope you don't mind helping me to shock Monty Gilroy?"
"I am proud."
But the kick had gone out of his voice, and to her hand his arm was suddenly as a log of wood. She mused a space. Then —
"It isn't everyone I would ask to help me in such – in such a delicate matter," she said, in a troubled tone. "You see I am a woman at the mercy of men. They're all very kind and loyal in their own way, but their way is their own, as you know. I thought as I had given you a hand with them – well, I thought you would be in sympathy."
"I am, I am – Heaven knows!"
The log had become exceedingly alive.
"Then let us skirt in and out, on the edge of the plantation, so that Mr. Gilroy may have the pleasure of seeing my frock from time to time."
"I'm your man."
"No, not that way – this. There, I'm sure he must have seen me then."
"He must."
"It's time we went back; but this will have done him all the good in the world," said Naomi.
"It's a pity you haven't a manager whom you can respect and like," the piano-tuner remarked.
Naomi started. She also stopped to lace up her shoe, which necessitated the withdrawal of her hand from the piano-tuner's arm; and she did not replace it.
"Oh, but I do like him, Mr. Engelhardt," she explained as she stooped. "I like Mr. Gilroy very much; I have known him all my life, you know. However, that's just where the disadvantage comes in – he's too much inclined to domineer. But don't you run away with the idea that I dislike him; that would never do at all."
The piano-tuner felt too small to apologize. He had made a deadly mistake – so bad a one that she would take his arm no more. He looked up at the moon with miserable eyes, and his brain teemed with bitter self-upbraiding thoughts. His bitterness was egregiously beyond the mark; but that was this young man's weakness. He would condemn himself to execution for the pettiest sin. So ashamed was he now that he dared not even offer her his hand when they got back to the veranda, and she consigned him to the boy in spectacles, who then showed him his room in the barracks. And his mistake kept him awake