"Men are very level-headed," thought Mrs. Romilly, "they are not so emotional and impressionable as we are; after all, of course, poor Auntie A. is very vague."
Out of doors Crow and the level-headed one went down to the bay in company. Sisters are given to a certain clearness of vision not always vouchsafed to mothers. Said Christobel:
"Addie--do you really think all that you said to Mother about Miss Ashington and Pam?"
"Of course I don't," promptly answered the shameless Adrian, "Miss Ashington is mad, right enough--raving--ought to be chained up before she drives all the farmers dotty, but she saw Pam right enough--so did Farr."
"But, Addie----"
"Oh, I know--you're going to say one ought not to believe the evidence of one's own sight if it is against people you love. You must--till one's got something more reliable to see with than eyes. All the same life's not worth living if Mother is in a distraught condition--and nobody comes to meals except the Floweret trying to draw us all together by bonds of family love. If she's 'bright' again at tea-time I shall take the yawl to Salterne and stay there. If Pam has got the thing it's her look-out, she won't enjoy having it--as I said before, she's been awfully queer lately."
In order to check another allusion to the Beak, Christobel suddenly proposed bathing from the yacht.
"Time for a heavenly one before tea," she suggested.
Adrian forgot all the sorrows of the household in an instant and received the plan with a cheer; they two went with a rush, which carried them breathless and giggling on to the sands among the seaweedy rocks and the anemone-peopled pools. Here was Hughie--testing secretly a storm or wind anchor that he had invented. Adrian upset him into a sea pool--which Hughie did not mind, because it diverted attention from the wind anchor--then the two elders proceeded to haul the dinghy down and make preparations.
"Whole day since we came," remarked Adrian regretfully, "what waste!"