“These are some of the best I have,” he said; “that’s my boat, and that is Mr. Lambert’s.”
“Oh, the nasty thing! I’m sure I don’t want to see her again! and I shouldn’t think you did either!” with an uncertain glance at him. It had seemed to her when, once or twice before, she had spoken of the accident to him, that it was a subject he did not care about. “Mr. Lambert says that the upsetting wasn’t her fault a bit, and he likes going out in her just the same. I think he’s a very brave man, don’t you?”
“Oh, very,” replied Christopher perfunctorily; “but he rather overdoes it, I think, sometimes, and you know you got the worst of that business.”
“I think you must have had the worst of it,” she said timidly. “I never was able to half thank you—” Even the equalising glow from the pink lampshades could not conceal the deepening of the colour in her cheeks.
“Oh, please don’t try,” interrupted Christopher, surprised into a fellow-feeling of shyness, and hastily turning over the yachting page; “it was nothing at all.”
“Indeed, I wanted to say it to you before,” persevered Francie, “that time at the bazaar, but there always were people there. Charlotte told me that only for you the pike would be eating me at the bottom of the lake!” she ended with a nervous laugh.
“What a very unpleasant thing to say, and not strictly true,” said Christopher lightly. “Do you recognise Miss Mullen in this?” he went on, hurrying from the subject.
“Oh, how pretty!” cried Francie, peering into a small and dark picture; “but I don’t see Charlotte. It’s the waterfall in the grounds, isn’t it?”
Pamela looked over from the piano again, amazed to hear her brother’s voice raised in loud laughter. There was no denying that the picture was like a waterfall, and Francie at first rejected with scorn the explanation that it represented a Sunday-school feast.
“Ah, go on, Mr. Dysart! Why, I see the white water and the black rocks, and all!”