"Yes?"
The quick word altered the speech it had also interrupted.
"I should have thought it exceedingly kind of you," said Olivia, after a moment's reflection.
She replaced the flowers on the chimney-board, and then led the way out among the pines.
"I'm sorry you were in such a hurry," he said, overtaking her when he had locked up the hut. "I might have made you some billy-tea. The billy's the can you make it in up the bush. I had such a work to get one over here! I keep some tea in the hut, and billy-tea's not like any other kind; I call it better; but you must come again and sample it for yourself."
"We'll see," said Olivia smilingly; but with that she lost her tongue; and together they crossed the lake in mutually low spirits. It was as though the delicate spell of simple friendship had been snapped as soon as spun between them, and the friends were friends no more.
On the lawn, however, in a hammock under an elm, they found a young man smoking. It was Mr. Edmund Stubbs, who had arrived, with his friend the Impressionist, on the Saturday afternoon. He was smoking a pipe; but the ground beneath him was defiled with the ends of many cigarettes; and close at hand a deck-chair stood empty.
"I smell the blood of Mr. Llewellyn," said Olivia, coming up with the glooming Duke. "He smokes far too many cigarettes!"
"He has gone for more," said the man in the hammock.
"I wonder you don't interfere, Mr. Stubbs; it must be so bad for him."