Whereupon Adderley clapped his hat on his head, and resting a hand firmly on one of the rough posts which supported the close green barrier between them, vaulted lightly over it and stood beside her.
"Not badly done,"--said Cicely, eyeing him quizzically--"for 'a poor scribbler of rhymes' as you call yourself. Most men who moon about and write verse are too drunken, and vicious to even see a hedge,-- much less jump over it."
"Oh, say not so!" exclaimed Adderley--"You are too young to pass judgment on the gods!"
"The gods!" exclaimed Cicely--"Whatever are you talking about? The gods of Greece? They were an awful lot--perfectly awful! They wouldn't have been admitted EVEN into modern society, and that's bad enough. I don't think the worst woman that ever dined at a Paris restaurant with an English Cabinet Minister would have spoken to Venus, par exemple. I'm sure she wouldn't. She'd have drawn the line there."
"Gracious Heavens!" and Adderley stared in wonderment at his companion, first up, then down,--at her wild hair, now loosened from its convent form of pigtail, and scarcely restrained by the big sun- hat which was tied on anyhow,--at her great dark eyes,--at her thin angular figure and long scraggy legs,--legs which were still somewhat too visible, though since her arrival at Abbot's Manor Maryllia had made some thoughtful alterations in the dress of her musical protegee which had considerably improved her appearance--"Is it possible to hear such things---"
"Why, of course it is, as you've got ears and HAVE heard them!" said Cicely, with a laugh--"Don't ask 'is it possible' to do a thing when you've done it! That's not logical,--and men do pride themselves on their logic, though I could never find out why. Do you like cowslips?" And she thrust the great bunch she had gathered up against his nose--"There's a wordless poem for you!"
Inhaling the fresh fine odour of the field blossoms, he still looked at her in amazement, she meeting his gaze without the least touch of embarrassment.
"You can walk home with me, if you like!"--she observed condescendingly--"I won't promise to ask you into the Manor, because perhaps Maryllia won't want you, and I daresay she won't approve of my picking up a young man in the woods. But it's rather fun to talk to a poet,--I've never met one before. They don't come out in Paris. They live in holes and corners, drinking absinthe to keep off hunger."