‘What Zal said once to Rostum dost thou know?
“Think none contemptible who is thy foe.”’
To-morrow brings him, faithful to his word. It brings, too, a great many gifts with him. Is there one child of the house forgotten? Not one. And even Miss Barry is remembered.
‘Oh, how good, how kind of you!’ says Susan. ‘Fancy remembering every one of us!’
‘I don’t believe I was ever called good before,’ says Crosby. ‘It makes me feel like the bachelor uncle’—as he says this he thinks again of the kiss that Susan had once given him—‘and old, quite hopelessly old!’
‘Nonsense!’ says Susan. ‘You?’—looking at him—‘you are not old.’
‘Go to, flatterer! You really shouldn’t, Susan! Flattery is bad for people generally, and for me in particular. I’m very open to it.’
‘I don’t flatter,’ says Susan. She laughs and runs away to answer a call from her aunt, who is evidently struggling with an idea, in one of the rooms within.
‘Who’s that on the tennis-ground?’ asks Crosby of Betty as they are standing on the hall-door steps.
‘Oh, don’t you know? That’s James. He came back a week ago. Of course, now I think of it’—airily—‘you couldn’t know, as we were unable to write to you for the past week. But it’s James. You remember hearing about him?’ Crosby does. ‘Well, he’s home on leave now. But,’ says Betty, giving way to suppressed mirth, ‘I think his wits have gone astray, and he believes his home is here. Anyway, we can always find him somewhere, round any corner, from ten to eight. And’—she grows convulsed with silent mirth again—‘he’s just as spooney on Susan as ever!’