“That’s all right,” said Varley Howard. “I’ll speak to her.”
The Penman took alarm immediately.
“I do hope you won’t be—be angry with her, Mr. Howard,” he said. “It’s—er—mere thoughtlessness on her part. She is most amiable and affectionate, and—er—if I thought you were going to be harsh with her I should regret having spoken. As it is, I suppose, if the boys knew I had made even a shadow of complaint, I should be shot on sight.”
Varley Howard reassured him, and went in search of Esmeralda. He found her lying at full length under the trees by the stream. Her pony was nibbling the grass a few feet from her; her hat was hanging over her eyes, her arms folded behind her head. She looked the picture of girlish grace and loveliness.
Varley thought she was asleep, but her quick ears had caught his footsteps, and she sprung to her feet with a glad cry, and threw her arms round his neck, nearly knocking his cigarette out of his mouth and quite knocking off his sombrero. As the camp worshiped her, she worshiped Varley Howard; to her he was everything that was good and handsome and noble.
She drew him down to a seat beside her, picked up his sombrero and put it on, of course uncomfortably and all on one side.
“What a time you have been away, Varley, dear”—Varley had been making a tour of the other camps in the pursuit of his vocation—“I hope you’ve come to stay a long while.”
“Just a week or two, Esmeralda,” he said. “How are you getting on?”
“Oh, very well,” she said. “I’ve taught the pony to jump the dike at the end of the camp, and I can swim across the Wally and back again; and yesterday I won four shots out of six with Taffy at a sovereign apiece.”
“That’s very good,” he said. “The boys are kind to you and you are happy.”