“Oh, Larry, I wish you’d come in the skirt!” Deb laughed blissfully. “What a dear old crackpot you are! I’m sure Verity must be frantically busy; these things take no end of trouble and arranging. I’m going over, to-morrow, to give her a hand. The concert will soon be over, now, so try not to worry her until she’s recovered.”
“Worry her?” Larry exploded, dreadfully injured. “Worry her? Why, I’m her right-hand man and the L.N.W.R. and the Army and Navy Stores combined! I spend my days shootin’ into Witham after music, an’ droppin’ notes on the squawkers, an’ judgin’ patterns an’ huntin’ up words that look a bit rocky in the programme. D’you suppose I find it amusin’ playin’ errand-boy and encyclopædia, an’ all the rest of the tommy-rot?”
“Why, yes, you simply love it!” Deb said firmly. “You like being ordered about by Verity and told to do things, because it saves you the trouble of thinking. You care for each other all right, but you don’t take the matter seriously enough—either of you; that’s what’s wrong, Larry dear. Some day you’ll have a big row over something that goes deep, and you’ll not be able to get back. You should stop away from her, and refuse to be played with any longer. She’d soon find that she couldn’t do without you.”
“How can you turn your head one way an’ your heart another?” Larry asked reproachfully, “or keep away from the fire when you’re freezin’, or lock up the ginger-beer when you’re thirsty? You’re not a bit soothin’, dear old thing! An’ I don’t see that I’ll ever quarrel with Verity, in spite of your interestin’ prophecy. She’s not playin’ Queensberry, I’ll admit, but she’s as straight as a regiment, for all that, an’ she’ll never do anythin’ that I’d be ashamed to own up to in my little girl!”
Deb’s maternal heart warmed towards Verity’s black donkey.
“You’re just the very nicest person that ever was, Larry!” she exclaimed affectionately. “And Verity knows it as well as I do. You’re both dears. But oh, do be careful not to crock up things by accident!”
As they quitted the road for the river-bank, Mrs. Slinker lined up with them in thankful haste, leaving Rishwald to propel the Honourable through the narrow stile. Larry knew her, of course—he knew everybody—(especially the members of that interesting force, the County police)—and greeted her with a pumping handshake.
“I hope you’re soothin’?” he inquired pathetically. “I’ve had a nasty jar, an’ Miss Lyndesay’s out of practice, this mornin’.”
“I should have thought the morning itself would have been sufficiently soothing,” Mrs. Slinker replied, looking at the quiet, brown-hedged land with the river curving from field to field between the white gleam of snowdrops, and the faint sun gilding the green in patches. Christian was in front with hounds bunched close at his heels, walking easily yet with that covering swing that must be followed to prove its pace. The whips were a yard or two behind, keeping a stern watch on any sudden desire after a stray rabbit. Then came the field at a respectful distance, here and there a red jersey or a blue wing standing out on the soft background. Horses came to the fences and lifted surprised heads. Cattle lowered theirs anxiously, and followed awhile in mild curiosity, while the sheep in meadow after meadow, within sight or out of it, huddled together, facing outward, with the unerring prescience that warns them of any canine close at hand.
Nettie, looking nervously behind her, saw Rishwald shuffle the Honourable on to the doctor, and with a wild signal of distress to her companions, slid through a hedge before their astonished eyes. Scouting by means of a gate, they discovered her on the far side, sitting in a bramble.