"Not if Mr. Gayne can help it," declared Veronica. "He was afraid Mrs. Lowell was giving Bert too good a time with these walks and talks." She nodded her head. "Believe me, that is the reason—"
"Well, we have found you," said a voice behind them. It was a voice which made color steal up into Diana's cheeks. The girls both looked around quickly.
Philip Barrison was approaching, and with him a shorter man. Both were bareheaded.
"The blarney stone!" thought Veronica. She had been wondering when Mr. Barrison would bring him, and now she gave him what she herself would have described as the "once-over" as he smiled at Diana and lifted his hand to his tightly waved hair in salute.
What Veronica saw caused her to lift her hand to the bridge of her nose and cover its small proportions with two fingers, from both sides of which her round eyes gazed seriously.
CHAPTER X NICHOLAS GAYNE CONFIDES
"Are you interested in the horse-mackerel, too?" asked Diana.
The two men sat down on the grass near the girls as Barney Kelly answered: "Moderately, Miss Wilbur. Moderately interested. Being allowed to witness anything from terra firma invests it with a certain charm. Barrison has been merciless, I assure you, simply merciless."