She flushed.
“I just hate——” she was beginning, and then she checked herself. “What about him, Justin?”
“Oh, I came across him last term. He was lecturing. I tell you, he’s a man and a half. What he doesn’t know about birds would go into a wren’s egg. We pal’d up, rather. He’s quite young. He’s made me as keen as mustard. Of course I know nothing compared with him. He spends his life at it.”
“Taking birds’ eggs?” enquired Laura frigidly. “Like a little boy?”
But he swept on unheeding. He had got his half-a-dozen sectioned trays pulled out and spread round him on the floor.
“Not much here,” he commented disgustedly. “Sparrows and chaffinches and robins. Bellew would hoot.” He laughed. “That’s the right word. He’s like a bird himself, you know. All the birds that ever were, rolled into one. Cocks his eye at you before he speaks and ruffles up his hair like a parrot when he’s keen. I never knew such a man. They say South Kensington would give its ears for his collection. And he can tell you every blessed thing every blessed bird in England thinks, or says, or does, from the egg on. You should hear him doing the notes. Hear that blackbird in the wood? You can’t tell whether that squawk is temper, or a worm gone down the wrong way, or a love affair. Nor can I. But if you got hold of Bellew——”
Laura sniffed. She was sorry, but she did not like Mr. Bellew, and she didn’t care who knew it.
“It’s squawking at Tom. He’s always under that nest. He got two of the babies last year. And it’s not a blackbird, it’s a garden warbler. They always build in that tree.”
“A garden warbler? How do you know?”
“British Feather Folk.” Laura twinkled. And then—“Mother loved birds.”