The Top of the World | Page 2

I."
"And you was only eighteen," pleaded Jeffcott, "You wasn't full-grown
in those days."
"No?" A quick sigh escaped her; her look came back to him, and she
smiled. "Well, I am now anyway; and that's the one thing that hasn't
altered or grown old--the one thing that never could."
"Ah, dear!" said old Jeffcott. "What a pity now as you couldn't take up
with young Mr. Eversley or that Mr. Preston over the way, or--or--any
of them young gents with a bit of property as might be judged
suitable!"
Sylvia's laugh rang through the vinery, a gay, infectious laugh.
"Oh, really, Jeffcott! You talk as if I had only got to drop my
handkerchief for the whole countryside to rush to pick it up! I'm not
going to take up with anyone, unless it's Mr. Guy Ranger. You don't
seem to realize that we've been engaged all this time."
"Ah!" said old Jeffcott, looking sardonic. "And you not met for five
years! Do you ever wonder to yourself what sort of a man he may be
after five years, Miss Sylvia? It's a long time for a young man to keep
in love at a distance. It's a very long time."
"It's a long time for both of us," said Sylvia. "But it hasn't altered us in
that respect."
"It's been a longer time for him than it has for you," said Jeffcott
shrewdly. "I'll warrant he's lived every minute of it. He's the sort that
would."
Sylvia's wide brows drew together in a little frown. She had caught the
note of warning in the old man's words, and she did not understand it.

"What do you mean, Jeffcott?" she said, with a touch of sharpness.
But Jeffcott backed out of the vinery and out of the discussion at the
same moment. "You'll know what I mean one day, Miss Sylvia," he
said darkly, "when you're married."
"Silly old man!" said Sylvia, taking up the cluster of grapes for which
she had come and departing in the opposite direction. Jeffcott was a
faithful old servant, but he could be very exasperating when he liked.
The gardens were bathed in the evening sunlight as she passed through
them on her way to the house. The old Manor stood out grey and
ancient against an opal sky. She looked up at it with loving eyes. Her
home meant very much to Sylvia Ingleton. Until the last six months she
had always regarded it as her own life-long possession. For she was an
only child, and for the past three years she had been its actual mistress,
though virtually she had held the reins of government longer than that.
Her mother had been delicate for as long as she could remember, and it
was on account of her failing health that Sylvia had left school earlier
than had been intended, that she might be with her. Since Mrs.
Ingleton's death, three years before, she and her father had lived alone
together at the old Manor in complete accord. They had always been
close friends, the only dissension that had ever arisen between them
having been laid aside by mutual consent.
That dissension had been caused by Guy Ranger. Five years before,
when Sylvia had been only eighteen, he had flashed like a meteor
through her sky, and no other star had ever shone for her again. Though
seven years older than herself, he was little more than a boy, full of
gaiety and life, possessing an extraordinary fascination, but wholly
lacking in prospects, being no more than the son of Squire Ingleton's
bailiff.
The Rangers were people of good yeoman extraction, and Guy himself
had had a public school education, but the fact of their position was an
obstacle which the squire had found insuperable. Only his love for his
daughter had restrained him from violent measures. But Sylvia had
somehow managed to hold him, how no one ever knew, for he was a

man of fiery temper. And the end of if it had been that Guy had been
banished to join a cousin farming in South Africa on the understanding
that if he made a success of it he might eventually return and ask Sylvia
to be his wife. There was to be no engagement between them, and if
she elected to marry in the meantime so much the better, in the squire's
opinion. He had had little doubt that Sylvia would marry when she had
had time to forget some of the poignancy of first love. But in this he
had been mistaken. Sylvia had steadfastly refused every lover who had
come her way.
He had found another billet for old Ranger, and had installed a dour
Scotchman in his place. But Sylvia still corresponded with young Guy,
still spoke of