"Who—who's Miss Mayne?"
"I told you. Our governess. She's a perfect ripper. She's the third governess we've had. But the other two weren't quite——" Cornelius James hesitated. "Well's matter of fact, I don't think they were quite the right sort. They didn't understand how to play, they hadn't any 'magination, and they were always afraid of cows and getting sunburnt and taking off their shoes and stockings when it came to anything wet. Miss Mayne's quite different—because—well, because she's what she is, I suppose. It makes all the difference, doesn't it?"
Graeme Jakes considered the subtlety in silence.
"I don't know," he said finally. He turned his head and looked at the small snob nursing his bare knees. Again their eyes met in friendly searching scrutiny.
"I've hardly ever met any ladies," he said. It was as if he had taken the boy as an equal into a rather pathetic confidence.
Cornelius James surveyed his new friend with a deliberate interest. It absorbed the frayed deerstalker speckled with trout-flies, the flannel shirt open at the throat, the baggy tweed coat of many pockets, the corduroy breeches and muddy boots and gaiters. To the wearer of these garments he applied in turn all the standards of his brief experience of life.
"Don't they like you?" he asked.
"Dunno," was the reply. "Never asked 'em." He looked musingly across the rolling moor. "One did once—but she died when I was little."
The splashing of water down-stream interrupted the speaker.
"Here's Jane," said Cornelius James, looking over his shoulder. "She's all right," he added, quickly, as the other made a hasty movement that suggested fright. "She's really quite sensible for a girl."