They
stopped only at the hedge, where she had that morning encountered
the tramp.
There is little doubt that the rest of the party was disconcerted:
Amita, whose figure was not adapted to this Camilla-like exercise;
Raymond, who was annoyed at the poor girl's discomfiture; and
Garnier, who had lost a golden opportunity, with the faint
suspicion of having looked ridiculous. Only Maruja's eyes, or
rather the eyes of her lamented father, seemed to enjoy it.
"You are too effeminate," she said, leaning against the fence, and
shading her eyes with her fan, as she glanced around in the staring
moonlight. "Civilization has taken away your legs. A man ought to
be able to trust to his feet all day, and to nothing else."
"In fact--a tramp," suggested Raymond.
"Possibly. I think I should like to have been a gypsy, and to have
wandered about, finding a new home every night."
"And a change of linen on the early morning hedges," said Raymond.
"But do you think seriously that you and your sister are suitably
clad to commence to-night. It is bitterly cold," he added, turning
up his collar. "Could you begin by showing a pal the nearest
haystack or hen-roost?"
"Sybarite!" She cast a long look over the fields and down the
lane. Suddenly she started. "What is that?"
She pointed to a tall erect figure slowly disappearing on the other
side of the hedge.
"It's Pereo, only Pereo. I knew him by his long serape," said
Garnier, who was nearest the hedge, complacently.
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