“What would you like to do to-day, Blachland?” said his host, joining him. “I’ve got to ride over to Theunis Nel’s about some stock, but it means the best part of the day there, so I don’t like suggesting your coming along. They’re the most infernal boring crowd, and you’d wish yourself dead.”
Hilary thought this would very likely be the case, but before he could reply there came an interruption—an interruption which issued from a side door somewhere in the neighbourhood of the kitchen, for they were standing at the end of the stoep, an interruption wearing an ample white “kapje,” and with hands and wrists all powdery with flour, but utterly charming for all that.
“What’s that you’re plotting, father? No, you’re not to take Mr Blachland over to any tiresome Dutchman’s. No wonder he talks about going away. Besides, I want to take him with me. I’m going to paint—in Siever’s Kloof, and Fred isn’t enough of an escort.”
“I think I’ll prefer that immeasurably, Miss Bayfield,” replied he most concerned.
“I shall be ready, then, in half an hour. And—I don’t like ‘Miss Bayfield’—it sounds so stiff, and we are such old friends now. You ought to say Lyn. Oughtn’t he, father, now that he is quite one of ourselves?”
“Well, I should—after that,” answered Bayfield, comically, blowing out a big cloud of smoke.
But while he laughed pleasantly, promising to avail himself of the privilege, Hilary was conscious of a kind of mournful impression that the frank ingenuousness of the request simply meant that she placed him on the same plane as her father, in short, regarded him as one of a bygone generation. Well, she was right. He was no chicken after all, he reminded himself grimly.
“I say, Lyn, I’m going with you too!” cried Fred, who was seated on a waggon-pole a little distance off, putting the finishing touches to a new catapult-handle.
“All right. I’ll be ready in half an hour,” replied the girl.