The hot colour flooded the girl's face. Her eyes shone like stars.
"Oh, may I?" she cried impulsively.
That afternoon marked an epoch. Friendship is a matter more of temperament than of years. That the Lavender Lady was middle-aged, and Avelyn barely sixteen, made not the slightest difference to either of them. Each character dove-tailed comfortably into the other. Miss Carrington had a great sympathy for girls, and she seemed to understand Avelyn at once. As for the latter, she had utterly lost her heart. But for the fear of making herself a nuisance she would have nearly lived at the bungalow. She went there very often by special invitation, and spent glorious, delightful afternoons sitting in the garden, talking about art and books and music, and the foreign places Miss Carrington had visited. It fascinated Avelyn to hear about Venice and Rome and Sicily and Egypt, and made her long to go and see them for herself.
"You shall, some day, when the war's over," said the Lavender Lady confidently.
Sometimes they would go for walks together, or Avelyn would wait with a book while Miss Carrington sketched, or—what she loved immensely—would sit in the twilight while her friend improvised soft dreamy music at the piano. The little volume of poems, Cameos, by Lesbia Carrington, she already knew almost by heart; the small, white-and-gold edition, with its signed autograph, was her greatest treasure. To Avelyn it was a most inspiring friendship, that roused dormant hopes and ideals in her nature which promised to make rapid growth afterwards. Her Lavender Lady proved the most delightful of confidantes. It was possible to tell her everything. She never laughed at Avelyn's secrets, though she was merry enough on occasion.
One evening she and Avelyn sat in the little garden, watching the red glow of the setting sun fade away behind the dark boughs of the yew trees. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers; from the fields came the caw of rooks, as long flights passed homeward to roost. Avelyn squatted on the grass, with her head against the Lavender Lady's knee, and held her hand tight.
"Next week I shall be back at Silverside," she whispered. "I just hate the thought of it!"
"Poor little woman!"
"It isn't as nice there as it ought to be, somehow. Things seem always at sixes and sevens, and it's so horrid."
"What's the trouble?"