“I felt I must speak to you before I went,” he said. “I’m going away, not exactly on active service, but on business--on very active business. I feel like the fellows did when they went to the war ... and what they wanted to do first.... I am aware that a proposal over a pig-sty is not so symbolical to some as to me, but really and truly ... I don’t know whether I mentioned it, but you may be aware that I worship you.” Joan Hardy was quite aware of it; but the conventionalities in her case were like concentric castle-walls; the world-old conventions of the countryside. There was in them the stiff beauty of old country dances and the slow and delicate needlework of a peasantry. Of all the ladies whose figures must be faintly traced in the tapestry of these frivolous tales of chivalry, the most reticent and dignified was the one who was not in the worldly sense a lady at all. She stood looking at him in silence, and he at her; as the lift of her head had some general suggestion of a bird, the line of her profile had a delicate suggestion of a falcon, and her face was of the fine tint that has no name, unless we could talk of a bright brown. “Really, you seem in a terrible hurry,” she said. “I don’t want to be talked to in a rush like this.” “I apologize,” he said. “I can’t help being in a rush, but I didn’t want you to be in a rush. I only wanted you to know. I haven’t done anything to deserve you, but I am going to try. I’m going off to work; I feel sure you believe in quiet steady work for a young man.” “Are you going into the bank?” she asked innocently. “You said your uncle was in a bank.” “I hope all my conversation was not on that level,” he replied. And indeed he would have been surprised if he had known how exactly she remembered all such dull details he had ever mentioned about himself, and how little she knew in comparison about his theories and fancies, which he thought so much more important. “Well,” he said with engaging frankness, “it would be an exaggeration to say I am going into a bank; though of course there are banks and banks. Why, I know a bank whereon the wild thyme--I beg your pardon, I mean I know a lot of more rural and romantic occupations that are really quite as safe as the bank. The truth is, I think of going into the bacon trade. I think I see an opening for a brisk young man in the ham and pork business. When you see me next I shall be travelling in pork; an impenetrable disguise.” “You mustn’t come here, then,” she answered. “It won’t be allowed here by that time. The neighbours would----” “Fear not,” he said, “I should be a commercial traveller. Oh, such a very commercial traveller. And as for not coming here, the thing seems quite unthinkable. You must at least let me write to you every hour or so. You must let me send you a few presents every morning.” “I’m sure my father wouldn’t like you to send me presents,” she said gravely.