Marjorie gazed into the heart of a glorious Duc de Rohan with interest.
‘Geoffrey reads as I,’ said Gaston, passing into a lighter strain, ‘meant to read, once. You look sceptical, Miss Bartrand! There was a time when I had bookish ambition. Yes, I talked, like many a fool before me, of going in for two Triposes, and left Cambridge without a degree. But Geff has a gigantic physique, a real hunger for hard work. He simply does not know the meaning of taking a holiday.
As they chatted Gaston’s eyes dwelt with artistic satisfaction on the girl’s slender figure and hands, on the chiselled Southern face overkissed by sea and sun for some English tastes, but pure, fresh, as the wine-dark roses over which she bent.
‘I am a sculptor by trade,’ he went on. ‘It might be truer to say a poor manufacturer of statuettes for the London market. Geff has told you how we get our daily bread, has he not?’
‘My tutor speaks of little—beyond my reading,’ stammered Marjorie, still without meeting the penetrating glance of Gaston Arbuthnot.
‘Well, even after work as light as mine, I find,’ said Gaston, with a clear conscience, ‘that amusement, varied in kind and ample of quantity, is needful. The heartiness of one’s work seems determined to a nicety by the heartiness of one’s play. Geoffrey takes his recreation just now in the wards of the Guernsey hospital. There was a bad quarry accident the day after our arrival here——’
‘I know,’ exclaimed Marjorie, paling. ‘The worst accident we have ever had at St. Sampson’s.’
‘Geoffrey, I need not say, went to the fore as a volunteer. Between the poor lads in hospital and those who lie still in the houses to which they were carried from the quarry his hands are full. That is the way Geff recreates himself.’
For a good many seconds Marjorie was speechless. Could it be that conscious weakness—weakness in her, a Bartrand—hindered the girl from trusting her own voice? Then, giving Gaston her profile still, she turned brusquely aside from the Tintajeux roses and from the discussion of Geoffrey’s qualities. She remembered her grandfather’s dinner-hour. The sun was getting low. It would be only human to search for Mrs. Arbuthnot, and deliver her out of the hands of Lord Rex.
‘We shall find them perfectly happy, and eating ices,’ said Gaston. ‘Dinah’s is not such a critical spirit as yours, Miss Bartrand. Let us bend our steps to the refreshment tent.’