“Sir?” From the interior.
“Will you be good enough to play that air with thirty-six variations, of Beethoven’s? We shall hear splendidly from the dinghy.”
“Certainly, sir.”
And Audrey said to herself: “You don’t want him to flirt with Tommy while you’re away, so you’ve given him something to keep him busy.”
Mr. Gilman remarked under his breath to Audrey: “I think there is nothing finer than to hear Beethoven on the water.”
“Oh! There isn’t!” she eagerly concurred.
Ignoring the thirty-six variations of Beethoven, Audrey rowed slowly away, and after about a hundred yards the boat had rounded a little knoll which marked the beginning of a narrow channel known as the Lander Creek. The thirty-six variations, however, would not be denied; they softly impregnated the whole beautiful watery scene.
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Gilman suddenly, “perhaps your ladyship was not quite pleased at me rowing-about with Miss Thompkins—especially after I had taken her for a walk.” He smiled, but his voice was rather wistful. Audrey liked him prodigiously in that moment.
“Foolish man!” she replied, with a smile far surpassing his, and she rested on her oars, taking care to keep the boat in the middle of the channel. “Do you know why I asked you to come out? I wanted to talk to you quite privately. It is easier here.”
“I’m so glad!” he said simply and sincerely. And Audrey thought: “Is it possible to give so much pleasure to an important and wealthy man with so little trouble?”