"To think that it should have been there all the time!" she said. "How blind you are, Mr. Armitage!"
Jack rose and knocked out his pipe. "The Fates are unkind," he said. "You call me in to tea just when I've lit my pipe, and then go and blame me for not finding the tennis-ball, which you told me was not worth while looking for."
"I didn't know it was in the gutter," she said. "I thought it had gone into the flower-beds."
"Nor did I know it was in the gutter, or I should have looked for it there."
Margery laughed.
"I wish you were stopping on longer," she said, "and not going to-morrow. Surely you needn't go?"
"You are too kind, but the Fates are still unkind," he said. "I have already put it off a week, during which time my brother has been languishing alone at New Quay."
"To New Quay? I didn't know you were going there. Frank and I know New Quay very well."
Frank was in the drawing-room when they went in, giving orders that the studio should be thoroughly swept out and dusted that evening.
"I'm going to begin painting to-morrow," he announced, abruptly, to the others as they came in.