Her clear, rather scornful eyes were on him critically.
"Association belongs to Hope as well as Memory, Mr. Lockhart. You may have had a mauvais quart d'heure at Roederay. We intend to have a good time; don't we, Eustace?"
"Rather!"
"I doubt it," retorted the elder man; "civilized people, like you, Eustace, for instance, shouldn't go to those places. To begin with, there is always a difficulty about dinner."
Lady Maud laughed. "Not in these days of ice and telegraphs. Besides, some of us like high teas--don't we, Eustace?"
His face did not change, though the appeal took him back many years in his turn; but then, the speaker was in that past as she was in the present. To say sooth, she occupied them both fully.
"Yes, we can endure them. Do you remember those holidays at Lynmouth, Maud, and the feeds we had on the cliffs? I wonder if any boy ate more strawberries and cream at a sitting than I could do in those days?"
"Have you changed much since then?" she asked, smiling up at him mischievously. "I don't see it, do you, Mr. Lockhart?"
"Not a bit," replied the elder, laying his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder. "Eustace is just what he was as a boy--not to be stinted in his enjoyment of good things. To return, however, to Roederay. You won't like its simplicity, its habit of taking one right down to first principles."
"It couldn't! we are too complex--aren't we, Eustace?"