“Why not, Jinny?” He bent down with sudden passion, all the cautious Cornishman’s long-wavering desires clenched by the discovery of her high educational endowments and concreted by actual contact with the desirable waist. “Why not go to chapel together and be done with it, once for all?” “Done with what?” she murmured, reddening. “Separating. Let me keep off the crowd always.” “Hush! They’ll hear you.” “No, they won’t. What do you say?” “Be quiet! I want to hear the bidding.” “Shall we publish the banns?” Jinny closed her lips obstinately. “Won’t you speak? You know I can buy out half Little Bradmarsh.” In her silence the voice of the auctioneer possessed the situation. “The best heifer for the last—maiden heifer, beautiful quality. Fourteen pound. Marvellous creature, marvellously cheap. Won’t anybody start me?” The drover prodded the prodigy up, and she trotted round dismally. “Fifteen,” cried a squeaky voice. “Fifteen,” echoed the auctioneer, cheering up. But his gloom soon returned. For the bidding refused to advance. “Being badly sold, this heifer,” he wailed. “By crum, he’s right!” quoth the Cornishman, pricking up his ears. “Sixteen pound!” he cried aloud, and was already congratulating himself upon his bargain, when, like the voice of doom, came the squeaky “Seventeen!” Farmer Gale was piqued. “Eighteen,” he said surlily. “Twenty!” It was a staggering blow. But it only raised the farmer’s blood. “Guineas!” he cried. “Twenty-two pounds!” chirped the voice. “Twenty-two pounds!” repeated the auctioneer insatiably. Beads of perspiration and hesitation appeared on the farmer’s brow. In his concentration on the problem his arm relaxed. Jinny stepped aside, and men unconsciously made way for her. “Guineas!” cried the farmer. “Twenty-two guineas!” repeated the auctioneer. “A beautiful maiden heifer—never had a calf. Going——” But this time Jinny was really gone. She would not even risk waiting outside to hear the result, but in generous gratitude at her escape, she hoped he would at least secure the maiden heifer. VI The sight of Will still at his post suggested to her with a little qualm that he was not so wrong: these male environments were not without their drawbacks. “Those horses seem to fascinate you,” she said, with a little tremor in her voice. Whether Will or the violence just done to her was the cause of it, she did not quite know. But her mood was melting and her eye the brighter for a soft moisture. But how was Will to follow her vagaries and adventures? “That’s my business,” he answered gruffly. “I thought it was mine,” she laughed. She was quite prepared now to make it a joint affair. “You know my opinion on that,” he said icily. “You haven’t changed it yet?” she bantered. “Why, what should happen in these few minutes to make me change it?”