Ruth looked at the sunlit peace of the farm, for they had reached the gate. She remembered what Violet Riversley had told her. And yet Dick Carey had cared for this man.
“And they had parted here as friends,” she said.
“I believe Dick was quite cut up about it,” said Mr. Fothersley. “Very odd. But poor dear Dick was odd! No sense of proportion, you know!”
This was a favourite saying of both Mr. Fothersley’s and Mrs. North’s. It is doubtful if either of them quite knew what they meant by it, but it sounded well.
Mr. Fothersley repeated it over again, leaning with his arms on the gate. “No sense of proportion. A lovable fellow though, most lovable. Many’s the time we’ve stood here, just as you and I are standing, watching his birds. You have the bird pool still, I see.” Mr. Fothersley fumbled for his glasses. “Yes, and those wretched little blue-tits everywhere—the worst offenders in the garden. Even the blossom is not safe from them. Madness to encourage them with coconuts and bacon-rind. But as I said, poor Dick——”
By this time Mr. Fothersley had his glasses firmly planted across the bridge of his nose. He could see the pool plainly, and in addition to several blue-tits, two round cherub faces, open-mouthed, very still, hanging over the edge of the bank.
“Good heavens! What are those?” he exclaimed.
“Only two small visitors of mine,” said Ruth, smiling. “It is quite wonderful how still they have learnt to be to watch the birds. They live in Blackwall Tenements, and their only playground there is a strip of pavement under a dust shoot.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Fothersley dubiously. “Blackwall. That is somewhere in the City.”
He was interrupted by a shrill, excited, plainly female voice on its topmost note.