‘Well, I ought not to talk like that,’ said Ladywell, adopting a lighter tone.  ’All is fair in courtship, I suppose, now as ever.  Indeed, I mean to put a good face upon it:  if I am beaten, I am.  But it is very provoking, after supposing matters to be going on smoothly, to find out that you are quite mistaken.’

‘I told you you were quite mistaken in supposing she cared for you.’

‘That is just the point I was not mistaken in,’ said Ladywell warmly.  ’She did care for me, and I stood as well with her as any man could stand until this fellow came, whoever he is.  I sometimes feel so disturbed about it that I have a good mind to call upon her and ask his name.  Wouldn’t you, Neigh?  Will you accompany me?’

‘I would in a moment, but, but—­ I strongly advise you not to go,’ said Neigh earnestly.  ’It would be rash, you know, and rather unmannerly; and would only hurt your feelings.’

’Well, I am always ready to yield to a friend’s arguments. . . .  A sneaking scamp, that’s what he is.  Why does he not show himself?’

‘Don’t you really know who he is?’ said Neigh, in a pronounced and exceptional tone, on purpose to give Ladywell a chance of suspecting, for the position was getting awkward.  But Ladywell was blind as Bartimeus in that direction, so well had indifference to Ethelberta’s charms been feigned by Neigh until he thought seriously of marrying her.  Yet, unfortunately for the interests of calmness, Ladywell was less blind with his outward eye.  In his reflections his glance had lingered again upon the pocket-book which Neigh still held in his hand, and upon the two or three rose-leaves on the floor, until he said idly, superimposing humorousness upon misery, as men in love can: 

’Rose-leaves, Neigh?  I thought you did not care for flowers.  What makes you amuse yourself with such sentimental objects as those, only fit for women, or painters like me?  If I had not observed you with my own eyes I should have said that you were about the last man in the world to care for things of that sort.  Whatever makes you keep rose-leaves in your pocket-book?’

‘The best reason on earth,’ said Neigh.  ‘A woman gave them to me.’

‘That proves nothing unless she is a great deal to you,’ said Ladywell, with the experienced air of a man who, whatever his inferiority in years to Neigh, was far beyond him in knowledge of that sort, by virtue of his recent trials.

‘She is a great deal to me.’

’If I did not know you to be such a confirmed misogynist I should say that this is a serious matter.’

‘It is serious,’ said Neigh quietly.  ’The probability is that I shall marry the woman who gave me these.  Anyhow I have asked her the question, and she has not altogether said no.’

‘I am glad to hear it, Neigh,’ said Ladywell heartily.  ’I am glad to hear that your star is higher than mine.’

Before Neigh could make further reply Ladywell was attracted by the glow of green sunlight reflected through the south door by the grass of the churchyard, now in all its spring freshness and luxuriance.  He bent his steps thither, followed anxiously by Neigh.