The Front—a strip of esplanade with the shingle and the grey sea on one side, beneath a low stone wall, and the green of the Public Gardens on the other—was almost deserted.
One or two young men in bowler hats and smoking Woodbine cigarettes hung round the empty band-stand, and an occasional invalid was pushed or pulled along in a bath-chair. Here and there a pair of sweethearts sat together in one of the small green shelters—the girl leaning against the man, and both of them motionless and speechless.
The sight of one such couple apparently gave Olive a desired opening.
“I say, what’s all this about you falling in love with some chappie in London?” she demanded abruptly.
“I haven’t fallen in love with anybody, that I know of,” said Lydia coolly.
“But there was someone going after you, now, wasn’t there?” urged Olive.
Lydia reflected.
“Who told you anything about it?” she demanded at last.
“Aunt Beryl told the mater.”
Lydia perceived to her surprise that Olive did not, as she would have expected her to do, despise her cousin for “sloppiness.” On the contrary, she appeared to be really impressed, and anxious to hear details from the heroine of the affair. Lydia did not resist the temptation.