"Talk of Ary Scheffer's Gretchen!" murmured Lorimer with a sigh. "What a miserable, pasty, milk-and-watery young person she is beside that magnificent, unconscious beauty! I give in, Phil! I admit your taste. I'm willing to swear that she's a Sun-Angel if you like. Her voice has convinced me of that."
At that instant the song ceased. Errington turned and regarded him steadfastly.
"Are you hit, George?" he said softly, with a forced smile.
Lorimer's face flushed, but he met his friend's eyes frankly.
"I am no poacher, old fellow," he answered in the same quiet accents; "I think you know that. If that girl's mind is as lovely as her face, I say, go in and win!"
Sir Philip smiled. His brow cleared and an expression of relief settled there. The look of gladness was unconscious; but Lorimer saw it at once and noted it.
"Nonsense!" he said in a mirthful undertone. "How can I go in and win, as you say? What am I to do? I can't go up to that window and speak to her,--she might take me for a thief."
"You look like a thief," replied Lorimer, surveying his friend's athletic figure, clad in its loose but well-cut yachting suit of white flannel, ornamented with silver anchor buttons, and taking a comprehensive glance from the easy pose of the fine head and handsome face, down to the trim foot with the high and well-arched instep, "very much like a thief? I wonder I haven't noticed it before. Any London policeman would arrest you on the mere fact of your suspicious appearance."
Errington laughed. "Well, my boy, whatever my looks may testify, I am at this moment an undoubted trespasser on private property,--and so are you for that matter. What shall we do?"
"Find the front door and ring the bell," suggested George promptly. "Say we are benighted travellers and have lost our way. The bonde can but flay us. The operation, I believe, is painful, but it cannot last long."
"George, you are incorrigible! Suppose we go back and try the other side of this pine-wood? That might lead us to the front of the house."
"I don't see why we shouldn't walk coolly past that window," said Lorimer. "If any observation is made by the fair 'Marguerite' yonder, we can boldly say we have come to see the bonde."
Unconsciously they had both raised their voices a little during the latter part of their hasty dialogue, and at the instant when Lorimer uttered the last words, a heavy hand was laid on each of their shoulders,--a hand that turned them round forcibly away from the window they had been gazing at, and a deep, resonant voice addressed them.