To François this was a new art, but when he had followed the fascinating process through all its stages until the white grains boiled up in the popper and threatened to burst the cover, his rapture knew no bounds.
"Could I do it myself, Miss Anne?" he asked, and she let him empty the snowy kernels into a big bowl, and fill the popper for a second supply.
She bent above him, showing him how to shake it steadily.
Geoffrey Fox coming in smiled at the scene. How far away it seemed from anything modern--this wide hearth-stone with the dog and the pussy cat--and the little children, the lovely girl and the old man--the wind blowing outside--the corn popping away like little pistols.
"May I have some?" he asked, and Anne smiled up at him, while Peggy brought little plates and set the big bowl on a stool within reach of them all.
"What brings you up, sir?" Geoffrey asked Brinsley.
"The drag-hunt and breakfast at the club. I am too stiff to follow, but David and I like to meet old friends--you see I was born in this country."
That was the beginning of a string of reminiscences to which they all listened breathlessly. The fox hunting instinct was an inheritance in this part of the country. It had its traditions and legends and Brinsley knew them all.
If any one had told Geoffrey Fox a few weeks before that he would be content to spend his time as he was spending it now, writing all day and reading the chapters at night to a serious-eyed little school-teacher who scolded him and encouraged him by turns, he would have scoffed at such an impossible prospect. Yet he was not only doing it, but was glad to be swept away from the atmosphere of somewhat sordid Bohemianism with which he had in these later years been surrounded.
And as Brinsley talked, Geoffrey watched Anne. She had Peggy in her arms. Such women were made, he felt, to be not only the mothers of children, but the mothers of the men they loved--made for brooding tenderness--to inspire--to sympathize.
Yet with all her gentleness he knew that Anne was a strong little thing. She would never be a clinging vine; she was rather like a rose high on a trellis--a man must reach up to draw her to him.
As she glanced up, he smiled at her, and she smiled back. Then the smile froze.