“About Mr Barron, then? Dear me, what a sagacious nod. Edie dear, don’t think out romances. Let’s enjoy the matter of fact and real. Ready for a walk?”
Edie held up her hat by one string, and put it on ready to descend with her cousin to a lower balcony, on another frontage of the house, where, seated at a table, with coffee, cigars, and a pack of cards, was the admiral, and, facing him, a rather heavily built man, with some pretensions to being handsome. He was plainly and well dressed, of the easy manners of one accustomed to all kinds of society, and apparently rather proud of his white, carefully tended hands.
As he turned a little more to the light in bending to remove the ash from his cigar, streaks of grey showed in his closely cut beard and crisp, dark hair. In addition there was a suggestion of wrinkling about the corners and beneath his eyes, the work more of an arduous life than age.
As he rose to replace the cigar between his lips he smiled carelessly.
“Luck’s with you to-day, admiral,” he said; and he was in the act of shuffling his cards when he caught sight of his companion’s daughter and niece.
In an instant the cards were thrown down, and the cigar jerked out of the window.
“What’s the matter?” said the admiral. “Ah, girls!”
“We’re come to ask you to go for a walk with us, papa, but if—”
Myra’s eyes rested for a moment on the admiral’s companion, and then dropped to the cards.
“Our game?” said the younger man quickly. “Oh, that’s nothing; we can play any time, Miss Jerrold, and the weather is lovely now. Why not accompany the ladies, sir?”