"You are a perfect hostess, Lavender. Chicken, and rolls, and, as I live, a salad! How has that lettuce kept so cool, I wonder?"
"As I have, by the simple process of doing nothing," she replied. "Stand that Moselle in the water, Melville, unless your thirst won't allow you to wait."
"I don't wonder the basket was so heavy," he remarked, as he obeyed her. "You've brought a full-blown luncheon—and trimmings. Silver spoons, by gad!"
"Well, you don't want to use tin ones just because you're eating out of doors, do you?"
"There are other things," he argued; "white metal, for instance. What is white metal?"
"I haven't the least idea," she said. "Mix the salad, and don't ask Mangnall's questions. The oil and vinegar are in those little screw-stoppered bottles."
"If you're ever hard up you can start a business to cater for picnic parties," Melville suggested; "Lavinie et Cie.," or something of that sort; "salads a specialite;" and you can patent a luncheon basket full of cunning little dodges like a dressing-case. Are you sure the salt isn't in your tooth-powder bottle now?"
"Quite sure," Lavender answered. "Fall to, good sir, fall to."
The al-fresco luncheon was a great success, and was supplemented by an early cup of tea, and afterwards Melville lay upon his back smoking cigarettes, while Lavender threw crumbs of bread to the fish that swarmed by the boat, and fought and leaped over each other in greedy haste to make the most of their unexpected treat.
It was very quiet in this creek, which was separated from the main stream by a tongue of land covered with trees and dense undergrowth. Upon the bank where Lavender and Melville reclined, ground ivy and white nettle grew in profusion, while willow-wort and meadow-sweet overhung the stream, and marsh marigolds flung back the sunlight from their glorious blooms; behind them flowering grasses and tufted rushes waved in luxuriance, and behind again there rose a screen of willows, flanked by silver birch and tapering poplars.