The summer days passed on: another school-friend came to stay with Dennis, and after him another, and Dennis seemed happy, though no one could kindle in him that abandoned radiance which Colin so easily lit. Colin had been away a month now, and, according to his plans, would be back for Dennis’s last week at home. But one evening there came a letter to Violet saying that he was intending to stop on in the island for another fortnight.
She read this to Dennis as they sat together that night for a bed-time talk after old Lady Yardley’s whist was finished, and Aunt Hester had hurried away in horror of the lateness of the hour and the fear of missing her beauty sleep. One piece of the letter was not for his ears: Colin asked if she was making up lost ground with Dennis, and supposed they had hatched plenty of conspiracies against him: he also sent a message to Dennis to say that he need not trouble to ink his fingers over writing to him, as his letters were quite illegible. Violet thought it unnecessary to deliver that message, but, reading out the postponement of his father’s return, she saw Dennis’s face fall.
“Then I shan’t see Father before I go back to Eton,” he observed.
Violet considered the dates.
“No, dear, you’ll have gone back several days before he comes,” she said.
The cloud deepened on Dennis’s face.
“Did Father say anything about the letters I’ve written him?” he asked.
She laughed.
“Yes, dear, he did say something,” she said, “about their not being particularly easy to read.”
“No other message for me?” asked the boy.