“I didn’t imagine you had forgotten your way down to the lake, if you wanted to bathe.”
Dennis gave him one quick anxious glance. There was something wrong: perhaps the business in London yesterday had worried him, or perhaps his father was vexed with him, though it seemed very inexplicable, about that matter of the train yesterday.
“I’m sorry about my coming in the morning yesterday,” he said, “after I had told you the afternoon. But I thought it would be so ripping to get here before lunch.”
“Oh yes: that’s all right,” said Colin absently.
At this moment Violet came in, and Colin’s manner instantly changed.
“Ah, Vi, darling,” he said. “There you are! I got back very late last night, for I thought I would dine with Aunt Hester. She was quite delightful: also quite astounding. About eleven she went off to a dance in a short pink dress and a wreath of flowers. She promised to come down here to-day, and stop till I go to Capri.”
Dennis pricked an ear at this.
“Oh, when will that be, Father?” he said.
“One of these days.... And then, if she likes, and you don’t mind, darling, she can stop on here, though I really believe she would like best to come to Capri, and disport herself like a small, imperishable, highly-coloured sea-nymph. How she would astonish the islanders!”
Dennis gave a cackle of laughter at this picture. Best of all was the gay good humour in his father’s voice. Colin turned to him.