She smiled at him maternally. She liked that clumsy compliment; she liked his naïveness, his simplicity, even his rudeness. She saw him no longer as a young man, but as a boy, who had been badly trained, a rather spoilt boy. She felt very peaceful, very kindly, toward him and toward everyone else. She had never known life to be so satisfying as it was that evening, for no reason at all.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I
He was there, the next evening, and welcomed her as an old friend; in fact, he talked so much that she grew uneasy.
“We’d better work a little,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be awful if a teacher should come and scold us—at our age!”
“What I particularly want to ask,” he said, “is, if you’d come down to Brighton Beach to-morrow? I’ll run you down in Horace’s motor. We’ll have lunch and a swim and get back early. Will that be all right?”
“I’d love it,” she answered, “but I don’t know whether Miss E. could spare me. I’ll ask her.”
“Perhaps if I came home with you this evening, it would look better. So that she can see what sort of chap I am. I could stop in for a moment, couldn’t I?”
“Yes,” Frances answered, doubtfully, “but—I suppose so ... but I’ll have to explain a little in advance. There’s a young German who comes every evening to see her, and you’re sure to find him there.”
“Every evening, eh?”