brushed his hair with elaboration, and ruffled it picturesquely, tried the effect of all his ties and selected a white one, dusted his boots with an old pocket-handkerchief, changed his trousers because the week-day pair was minutely frayed at the heels, and inked the elbows of his coat where the stitches were a little white.  And, to be still more 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 in feigned surprise, and stood away to give him room at the blackthorn.

“Which spike will you have?” he cried, overjoyed.  “The whitest?  The highest?  Any!”