"I never think of breakfast," said he amiably. "I merely eat it. Of course, it's a task to eat it sometimes, but—well, how are you? How do you like it out here?"
He was beside her on the broad seat, his face beaming, his gay little moustache pointing upward at the ends like oblique brown exclamation points, so expansive was his smile.
"I adore it," she replied, her own smile growing in response to his. It was impossible to resist the good nature of him. She could not dislike him, even though she dreaded him deep down in her heart. Her blood was hot and cold by turns when she was with him, as her mind opened and shut to thoughts pleasant and unpleasant with something of the regularity of a fish's gills in breathing.
"I knew you would. It's great. You won't care much for our place, Miss Castleton. Sara's got the pick of the coast in that place of hers. Trust old Sebastian Gooch to get the best of everything. If my dad or my grand-dad had possessed a tenth of the brain that that old chap had, we'd have our own tabernacle up there on the point, instead of sulking at his back gate. That's really where we're located, you know. His back gate opens smack in the face of our front one. I think he did it with malice aforethought, too. His back gate is two miles from the house. It wasn't really necessary to go so far for a back gate as all that, was it? To make it worse, he put a big sign over it for us to read: 'NO TRESPASSING. THIS MEANS YOU.' Sara took it down after the old boy died."
"I suppose by that time the desire to trespass was gone," she said. "One doesn't enjoy freedom of that sort."
"I've come to believe that the only free things we really covet are passes to the theatre. We never get over that, I'm sure. I'd rather have a pass to the theatre than a ten dollar bill any time. I say, it was nice of you to come down to meet me. It was more than I—er—expected." He almost said "hoped for."
"Sara was too busy about the house to come," she explained quickly. "And I had a few errands to do in the village."
"Don't spoil it!"
"I am a horribly literal person," she said.
"Better that than literally horrible," he retorted, rather proud of himself for it. "It's wonderful, the friendship between you two girls—Sara's not much more than a girl, you see. You're so utterly unlike in every way."