'Thank you very much,' he returned, with a simple cordiality which was a marked trait in his manner. 'I foresee that we shall quarrel occasionally,' he continued gaily, a little afterwards.
'Yes; there is an exasperating reasonableness about you,' she said, with a soberness only belied by the dancing light in her eyes, 'and that must breed mischief sometimes. I suppose it comes of your belonging to two old civilizations firmly rooted in the past.'
He maintained his gravity till her eyes betrayed her, and then they laughed together.
'You have a way of taking temporary rises out of me which you must expect to hear of again,' he said; and this threat made food for more laughter.
And then at that moment Louise, accompanied by two or three little ones, came in sight among the trees.
'What will my sister-in-law think?' said Stella, with an amused smile. 'She does not know we are old friends.'
What Louise thought as she approached the two was that they looked extremely companionable. Stella was attired in a close-fitting cream-coloured cashmere, with a cluster of passion-flowers at her throat, and a broad straw hat looped up at one side with the same flowers. A smile hovered about her lips, and as she talked her long thick lashes and dark slender eyebrows heightened the radiance of her eyes and cheeks.
Her companion was little over a head taller, with a muscular, well-formed figure. His eyes were dark gray, his head and brow strikingly noble—an air well maintained by the rest of the face, more especially the finely-moulded chin and mouth, whose short upper lip was defined rather than hidden by a silky black moustache. His hair was of the same colour; his skin a clear olive tint.
'I do not think I need offer to introduce you to one another,' said Louise, smiling.
'Well, no. We have just been finishing a talk we began the day after I landed in Australia,' said Langdale. And then Louise was speedily told all there was to tell.