“I think I shall go for a walk,” said Brook, rising rather abruptly. “I’ll go up the hill for a change. Thanks awfully. Good-bye!”
He lifted his hat and went off towards the hotel. Mrs. Bowring looked after him, but Clare leaned back in her seat and opened a book she had with her. The colour rose and fell in her cheeks, and she kept her eyes resolutely bent down.
“What a nice fellow!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowring when the young man was out of hearing. “I wonder who he is.”
“What difference can it make, what his name is?” asked Clare, still looking down.
“What is the matter with you, child?” Mrs. Bowring asked. “You talk so strangely to-day!”
“So do you, mother. Fancy asking him whether nineteen and six are twenty-five!”
“For that matter, my dear, I thought it very strange that you should tell him your age, like that.”
“I suppose I was absent-minded. Yes! I know it was silly, I don’t know why I said it. Do you want to know his name? I’ll go and see. It must be on the board by this time, as he is stopping here.”
She rose and was going, when her mother called her back.
“Clare! Wait till he is gone, at all events! Fancy, if he saw you!”