"What do you mean?" The boy's eyes flashed over him intelligently, green eyes humorously alert.
Scott glanced downwards. "I mean my legs are not a pair, so I can't even begin."
"Oh, bad luck, sir!" The equality vanished from the boy's voice. He became suddenly almost deferential, and Scott realized that he was no longer regarded as a comrade. "Still"—he hesitated—"you can luge, I suppose?"
"I don't quite see myself," said Scott, looking across once more to the merry group on the distant run.
"Any idiot can do that," the boy protested, then turned suddenly a deep red. "Oh, lor, I didn't mean that! Hi, Dinah!" He turned to cover his embarrassment and sent a deafening yell at the sun-bathed façade of the hotel. "Are you never coming, you cuckoo? Half the morning's gone already!"
"Coming, Billy!" at once a clear gay voice made answer, and the merriest face that Scott had ever seen made a sudden appearance at an open window. "Darling Billy, do keep your hair on for just two minutes longer! Yvonne has been trying on my fancy dress, but she's nearly done."
The neck and shoulders below the laughing face were bare and a bare arm waved in a propitiatory fashion ere it vanished.
"Looks as if the fancy dress is a minus quantity," observed Billy to his companion with a grin. "I didn't see any of it, did you?"
Scott tried not to laugh. "Your sister?" he asked.
Billy nodded affirmation. "She ain't a bad urchin," he observed, "as sisters go. We're staying here along with the de Vignes. Ever met 'em? Lady Grace is a holy terror. Her husband is a horrible stuck-up bore of an Anglo-Indian,—thinks himself everybody, and tells the most awful howlers. Rose—that's the daughter—is by way of being very beautiful. There she goes now; see? That golden-haired girl in red! She's another of your beastly star skaters. I'll bet she'll have that big bounder cutting capers with her before the day's out."