He had her hand by this time, and was shaking it wildly despite the resentment of the chestnut mare, at the sudden proximity of the bay horse.
"Yes! Me all right! Moi qui vous parle—as we say in French Paris! I only got home last night. I bought this chap at Sewell's on my way through. He's a County Limerick horse. I bet he's a goer! How do you like him?"
It was like Larry to require, instantly, praise and recognition for his new purchase, but Christian wasn't thinking of the horse. Her wide, clear eyes were fixed on his rider, her mind was a hustle of questions.
Had he changed? Would he stay? Did he know that he was "in black books" with her father? Would he care if he did know? What ages it seemed——! Four years, wasn't it? Her brain was working too hard to remember, but she certainly remembered that he had not had a moustache when he was last at home; such a fanciful little French scrap of a moustache as it was too, made of pure gold!
"I rather like it, Larry!" she said, beaming at him; "quite nice!"
"What? What's quite nice?" says Larry, beaming back; "oh, this?" He gave the moustache an extra upward twist. "Yes, rather so! Beats the Kaiser's to fits, I flatter myself! I'm glad you like it, but I don't see how you could help it!"
Yes! This was the old Larry, the right one; Christian felt very glad. It might so easily have been some one else, some one not half so nice as her own old Larry.
"Why on earth didn't you say you were coming? Cousin Freddy told us that you were painting at Étaples."
"So I was till one fine day I 'took the notion for to cross the raging ocean,' and I'm jolly glad I did too! Oh, by Jove! Look at old Bill and the hounds! What a swell! Christian, do you know I haven't seen a hound for four years! Do you mind if I call them 'dogs,' just till I get used to them a bit?"
There are few bonds more enduring than those that are woven round the playmates of childhood. In how many raids had Larry not been Christian's trusted leader! What stolen dainties had they not shared, what punishments not endured together! Larry's three years of seniority had only deepened the reverence and loyalty that he had inspired in his youngest follower; he had never presumed upon them; he had been a chieftain worthy of homage, and he had Had all Christian's. There are some people who appear to change their natures when they grow up. They may have been pleasing as little boys or girls; they may be equally agreeable as men and women, but there is no continuity and no development. They have become new creatures. Christian, alone of her family, was essentially as she had ever been, and, being of those whose inward regard is as searching as their outward observation, she knew it. Now, Larry had come back again, and in half-a-dozen sentences she knew that neither had he changed, and that with him her ancient leader had returned.