She hesitated.
"I don't mind your saying so in the least," he assured her. "He's a queer chap—a bit of a genius in his own line; but geniuses are trying folk to live with. How did he get on with your father?"
"Oh, Dad likes him," she said.
"He's not much of a ladies' man," remarked Noel. "I suppose he has chucked that job by this time, and gone back to Sir Kersley Whitton. Lucky beggar! He seems to be able to do anything he likes."
"I didn't know he was going to leave," said Olga quickly.
"No? I believe he said something about it in his letter to me. He is always rather sudden," said Noel. "Too much beastly electricity in his composition for my taste."
"Do you often hear from him?" Olga asked abruptly.
"Once in a blue moon. Why?" His dark eyes interrogated her, but she would not meet them.
"I just wondered," she said.
"No. I scarcely ever hear," said Noel. "He wrote, I suppose, to tell me of your good uncle's advent. He had probably heard from my sister that some of us were stationed here. Anyhow I lost no time in getting myself transferred for the pleasure of making his acquaintance. I was inclined to regret the move just at first. It's rather a hole, isn't it? But the moment I saw you—" Olga stiffened slightly, and he at once passed on with the agility of a practised skater on thin ice: "I say, what a ripping little sportsman your uncle is! He is actually talking of taking up polo again. Did you know?"