“Idiot!” commented Peter; and added, “Confound the fellow. That spoils our four for tennis.”
“We shall be all right for tennis.” Patricia filled the cups; passed them. “Violet and her husband have invited themselves for the week-end.”
“Oh Lord,” began Peter; but—catching his wife’s eye—desisted. After all, Rawlings didn’t play such a bad game of tennis; and Violet’s bridge, though not pleasant, was perfect. Tea over, Peter changed into flannels; came down to find Evelyn and Primula, barelegged, muslin-frocked and sun-bonneted, waiting for him.
“We want to go on the river,” they chorused, “we want to go on the river.”
“It’s too late for the river,” said Patricia.
“It isn’t too late. It isn’t too late. Is it Daddy? . . .”
“They do like him, don’t they?” Francis said to their mother. Peter, over-ruling her objections, had picked up the two laughing bundles; packed them into the cushioned punt; and was now poling slowly out into main stream.
“Why shouldn’t they?” laughed Patricia. But, all the same, she felt a little twinge of jealousy. The children meant so much to her, so little to Peter. Yet, at a lift of the finger, they would desert her for him. . . . Perhaps it was because that finger so seldom lifted. . . . If only one of them had been a boy!
She watched her husband’s strong figure, black now against the glow of the water, bending to the pole as he met the current. The punt glided under the railway bridge, out of sight.
“Of course they ought to have been boys.” Francis Gordon’s voice interrupted her reverie. He seemed—as often when they were quite alone,—to have dropped the mask of superciliousness. She looked at him; wondered how much he realized. A disturbing person, this new cousin of hers. Almost uncanny at times, this way in which his mind seemed to penetrate her thoughts. . . . And again that night, at table in the long low dining-room, she speculated about this man.