“Where is Mr. Smith?” asked Warner of Inglewood very sharply.
Arthur started; he had forgotten all about the central figure of their farce, who had not been visible for an hour or more.
“I—I think he’s on the other side of the house, by the dustbin,” he said.
“He may be on the road to Russia,” said Warner, “but he must be found.” And he strode away and disappeared round a corner of the house by the sunflowers.
“I hope,” said Rosamund, “he won’t really interfere with Mr. Smith.”
“Interfere with the daisies!” said Michael with a snort. “A man can’t be locked up for falling in love—at least I hope not.”
“No; I think even a doctor couldn’t make a disease out of him. He’d throw off the doctor like the disease, don’t you know? I believe it’s a case of a sort of holy well. I believe Innocent Smith is simply innocent, and that is why he is so extraordinary.”
It was Rosamund who spoke, restlessly tracing circles in the grass with the point of her white shoe.
“I think,” said Inglewood, “that Smith is not extraordinary at all. He’s comic just because he’s so startlingly commonplace. Don’t you know what it is to be all one family circle, with aunts and uncles, when a schoolboy comes home for the holidays? That bag there on the cab is only a schoolboy’s hamper. This tree here in the garden is only the sort of tree that any schoolboy would have climbed. Yes, that’s the thing that has haunted us all about him, the thing we could never fit a word to. Whether he is my old schoolfellow or no, at least he is all my old schoolfellows. He is the endless bun-eating, ball-throwing animal that we have all been.”
“That is only you absurd boys,” said Diana. “I don’t believe any girl was ever so silly, and I’m sure no girl was ever so happy, except—” and she stopped.