“Hulloa!”
Teddy turned to find the sturdy figure in the midshipman’s suit leaning against the railings beside him.
“Must be rather jolly to be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, don’t be a sausage.” Ruddy smiled imperturbably. “To be like them—old enough to put your arm round a girl without making people laugh.”
“Yes.”
Ruddy sank his voice. “Wonder where they all come from. Suppose they look quite proper by daylight, as though they’d never speak to a chap.”
The crowd was pouring out from the gates and melting away by twos and twos. Each couple seemed to walk in its own separate world, walled in by memories of tender things done and said. As they passed beneath lamps, the girls drew a little apart from their companions; but as they entered long intervals of twilit gloom their propriety relaxed.
Turning away from the river, the boys followed the crowd at random. Once Ruddy hurried forward to peer into a girl’s face as she passed beneath a lamp. She had flaxen hair which broke in waves about her shoulders.
Teddy flushed. He had wanted to do it himself, but something had restrained him. Secretly he admired Ruddy’s boldness. “Don’t do that,” he whispered.