“Rawdon Westmacott used to come over to help us. A pair of extra hands was welcome, but I think old Pennistan would rather the hands had been tied on to any other body. It was quite clear that he neglected his own farm only to be near Ruth, and I had long since gathered that the Pennistans would never willingly consider him as a son-in-law. I sympathised with them. He was an unruly man, as wild as he was handsome, a byword among the young men of the countryside; prompt with his fist—that was perhaps the best thing that could be said of him—foul with his tongue, intolerable when in his cups. So quarrelsome was he that even when sober he would seek out cause for insult. I myself, who in my capacity of guest took every precaution to avoid any unpleasantness, had an ominous encounter with him. I had spent a day in London, and returned with various little gifts which I had thought would please the Pennistans; to Ruth I brought a pair of big, round, brass ear-rings and a coloured scarf, for I had a fancy to see her tricked out as a gipsy. It entertained me to see her, who as I have told you was habitually slow of mind, enthusiasm, and speech, respond with some latent instinct to the gaudy things. She ran to the glass in the kitchen and began to screw the rings on to her unpierced ears. “‘You must learn to dance now, Ruth,’ I said. “She looked round at me, and in the turn of her head and the flash of the rings I seemed to see Concha of the gipsy booth. “‘Father doesn’t hold with dancing,’ she replied. “‘He isn’t here to see,’ I said. ‘Won’t you try a step?’ “She blushed. It was a pretty sight to see her blush. “‘I don’t know how,’ she said awkwardly, looking away from me into the glass as she wound the scarf round her neck. “‘Well,’ I said, ‘will you learn if I have you taught?’ “She burst into the shrill laugh of the common girl, and cried, ‘Get along with you, Mr. Malory! making fun of a poor girl like me.’ “Concha was gone, but I struggled to revive her, without conviction, and with a queer blankness in my heart. At least,” said Malory, correcting himself, “it wasn’t my heart, but my mind, my sense of rightness, that was disappointed. “‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘I’ll have you taught the dances of Spain.’ “‘Spain?’ she echoed, with a frown genuinely puzzled, so remote from her was all thought of the land of her wandering forefathers. “I risked a bold remark. “‘Your great-grandmother, I’ve no doubt, could give you a hint of the Spanish dances.’ “Then she remembered, but the recollection came to her, I could see, from afar off, with the unreality of a date in history, poignant enough at the time.