"It isn't often the mother and I drive out paying calls," he said, as he assisted in mooring the boat to her anchor, "but I was as dull as ditch-water. When I'm like that my mind always veers to you! Buck me up. I'm as flabby as a codfish. This heat, and life as it is seen from our house, is pretty deadly, I can tell you."
"You're too idle," Sidney said, looking at him with laughing eyes. "Hot weather and idleness naturally sap all your energy and spirit out of you. But if you had come down early this morning and told me you would take me for a day's sail in your new boat, we should both be returning now, enormously hungry, and ready for anything."
"Oh, why didn't I! But this scandalous little agent keeps me pottering over fusty musty documents on purpose to annoy. And the governor had a bad night, and so, of course, he insisted upon an extra lot of business being done; and first I had to be shut up with Dobbs, and then I had to be shut up with him, telling him every item of our conversation. The doctor is an old fool; he won't let Dobbs come near the governor; as if my bungling recital isn't fifty times worse than the genuine article! I assure you I wasn't done till one o'clock, and then I don't know who was exhausted most, the governor or myself."
Sidney went up the garden and greeted a tall, handsome woman who was talking to her father.
It was said in the neighbourhood that the de Cressiers were the proudest people in the county. They had lived at Thanning Towers since the Norman Conquest, and had refused several peerages, for their menkind had been of great service to their country and king. The present Henry de Cressiers had been stricken down a year ago in the hunting field, and he lay a helpless paralysed invalid; but his voice was left him, and his brain, though the latter was enfeebled. The eldest son and heir had been drowned out in America in that same year, and Austin, the second one, had been summoned home from the university to manage his father's estate and try to keep an eye upon a very unsatisfactory agent, whom Mr. de Cressiers would not discharge. Nearly all the de Cressiers were good-looking, dark men, with strong wills and stern self-repressed natures.
Austin often declared he must be a changeling, for his pride was nil, and he was one of the sunniest and most warm-hearted of mortals. As a small boy he had been devoted to Sidney, who was a distant cousin, her mother having been a de Cressiers, and his devotion was still as great.
Mrs. de Cressiers kissed Sidney affectionately. There were few people round who did not like the girl. Perhaps her attraction was chiefly in her intense interest in everyone and their affairs. Her nature was essentially a sympathetic one.
"My dear Sidney, I want to borrow you for a couple of nights. We have two big dinners on, and I want your help at them."
Sidney made a little grimace.
"Eating is such a farce this hot weather. Why don't you turn them into moonlight suppers up the river?"