After eleven years at Kingfield High School, Lesbia was thoroughly well accustomed to teasing. She let the girls say what they liked about her new friendship with Regina. She certainly did not mean to be chaffed out of it. On Saturday afternoon she donned her white tennis costume, put on a new shady white hat, and went on the top of the tram-car to Heathersedge, the suburb where the Websters lived. The guard put her down at the right corner, and after a few minutes walking she found herself at her destination, a square house covered with early June roses, and with ornamental vases filled with geraniums on each side of the porch. Though her reception was not quite on the lines which Ermie had picturesquely prophesied, it was nevertheless apparent that Regina had very much rubbed in glorified accounts of her personality. The family, who all owned the same soulful eyes, gazed at her with a fascinated intensity which made Lesbia devoutly hope she was not disappointing them.
"So you are Regina's idol! She talks about nobody else," said Mrs Webster, in the abrupt manner of her daughter, shaking hands very warmly and kindly, however, with her young guest.
Regina blushed and looked uncomfortable, as girls generally do when parents are guilty of indiscreet remarks. She made a conspicuous effort to hustle her friend away, but was balked by the rest of the family, whose attitude plainly demanded introductions. She catalogued them briefly, and would have dismissed them, but they declined to be so easily disposed of, and accompanied the visitor in a body to the garden. Lesbia, who was not very keen on spending a whole afternoon tête-à-tête with Regina, gave them palpable encouragement. She decidedly liked them. First there was Derrick, known in his private circle as "the stripling", a very tall boy of fourteen, who evidently enjoyed female society and was immensely pleased if he were treated as grown up. His manners were more suave than Regina's, and he had reached the stage when he delighted to open doors, pick up handkerchiefs, or perform any other small services for attractive members of the fair sex, preferably older than himself. He attached himself at once to Lesbia, ignoring indignant glances from his sister that seemed to say "Hands off! This is my special property."
Magsie and Una, two little girls with cropped flaxen hair and short-cut skirts, hovered about putting in any remarks that anybody would listen to. They each had an eye to taking Lesbia's disengaged left arm, but Regina, who had appropriated the other, frowned them fiercely away. Piers and Winston, the four-year-old twins, were exhibited proudly, somewhat in the fashion of domestic pets, and, when they had performed what Derrick called "their parlour tricks", were dismissed to play in a separate portion of the garden, and bribed with chocolates not to return.
There was a tennis lawn, a very nice one too, full-sized, and level, and thoroughly well rolled and free from daisies or dandelion roots. Lesbia looked at it so longingly that Regina, still anxious for an afternoon of private confidences, had perforce to offer a game, though her face grew a little glum when her guest promptly accepted.
"You'd better fetch John Curzon," she nodded to Derrick.
Derrick, without a word, and somewhat to Lesbia's amazement, departed over the wall, but he returned shortly accompanied by a boy friend who bore a tennis-racket.
There was a brief scrimmage about sides, Regina wanting Lesbia for a partner, and Derrick indignantly protesting against two girls playing together. He carried his point, and conducted the visitor to what he considered the more advantageous quarter of the court, leaving John and his sister to have the sun in their eyes. Magsie and Una constituted themselves umpires, and called out the score with keen satisfaction. The Websters were fairly good players, and Lesbia enjoyed herself, especially as she and Derrick were winning all along the line. In the middle of the second game she began to be aware of spectators. There was a paling between the side of the garden and a lane, and over the top of these wooden boards faces that seemed somehow familiar would peep for a moment and then vanish. It was only after several of these sudden bobbing appearances that her eyes recognized the well-known features of Ermie, Cissie, and Aldora. At the first convenient opportunity she pointed them out to her hostess.
"Hello, you girls! Show yourselves properly," yodelled Regina, running to the palings.
Audible giggles came from the lane, then sounds of hoisting, finally three smiling faces peered across the fence.