“Yes, he does,” said the Terror firmly.
“Well, with one watching while the other fishes, it ought to be safe enough; and I’ll stand the racket if you get prosecuted and fined. I want to take it out of that fellow Glazebrook—he’s not a sportsman.”
The Terror’s face had brightened; but he said: “But how should we account for the fish we took home?”
“You can reckon them presents from me. They would be—practically—if I’m going to pay the fines,” said Sir James.
The eyes of both the Twins danced: this was a fashion of dealing tenderly with exactitude which appealed to them. The Terror himself could not have been more tender with it.
“That’s a ripping idea!” said Erebus in a tone of the warmest approval.
The peace was thus concluded.
Having thus abated their hostility, Sir James spared no pains to win their good will. He gave the Terror a rook-rifle and Erebus boxes of chocolate. If he chanced on them when motoring in the afternoon he would carry them off, bicycles and all, in his car and regale them with sumptuous teas at the Grange; and at Colet House he entertained them with stories of the African forest which thrilled Mrs. Dangerfield even more than they thrilled them. But he won their hearts most by his sympathy with them in the matter of their mother’s appetite, and by joining them in little plots to obtain delicacies for her.
Having discovered how grateful it was to her, he lost no opportunity of taking the short cut to her heart by praising them. He laid himself out to be useful to her, to entertain and amuse her, trying to make for himself as large as possible a place in her life. She was not long discovering that he was in love with her; and the discovery came as a very pleasant shock. None of the neighbors, much less Captain Baster, who, during her stay at Colet House, had asked her to marry them, had attracted her so strongly as did Sir James. Even as her delicacy made the strongest appeal to his vigorous robustness, so his vigorous robustness made the strongest appeal to her delicacy.
But Little Deeping is a censorious place; and its gossips are the keener for having so few chances of plying their active tongues. When no less than four ladies had on four several occasions met Sir James and Mrs. Dangerfield walking together along the lanes, those tongues began to wag.