“Loafing after your recent efforts?”
“My efforts were pretty strenuous, sir. Then, on a summer afternoon, loafing has some charm.”
Jasper’s glance rested on Evelyn. His look was inscrutable, but Kit thought hers got harder, as if she knew him antagonistic.
“In the circumstances, perhaps it’s justifiable. You may think my statement strange, Miss Haigh, but long ago I was romantic, and when the days were golden we studied Tennyson. His verses harmonized with old English houses and ancestral trees, but the oaks at Netherhall are not the Carsons’ oaks and will certainly not be Kit’s. Harry’s claim is first and his type’s the landlord type.”
Evelyn sensed a sneer. Harry Ledward was Mrs. Carson’s relation.
“Tennyson is out-of-date, and we are modern,” she rejoined. “Kit talked about a steamship boiler and I was not bored.”
“Kit’s an optimist,” Jasper remarked, and turned to his nephew. “The Mariposa made a first-class trial run, but perhaps you ought to wait until the other boat has steamed across the measured marks.”
“I’m not anxious. The other boat’s no doubt a good boat, but she has not our boiler. In the meantime, it’s not important, and although you banter me about loafing, it doesn’t look as if you were very much engaged.”
“Netherhall is soothing,” Jasper agreed. “Still I’m not altogether slack. Sometimes I ponder and sometimes I plan.”
He went off, and Kit’s eyes twinkled. “Jasper’s plans work, and his obvious duty is to plan for me. All the same, if he wants to send me to Canada, I doubt if I’ll go. He has much to do with Canadian engineering and bridge-building works, but I’m satisfied to stop in the Old Country.”