The mosquito door swung back with a crash and Ellice appeared in the entrance with a hot, angry face, and hands smeared with dough, her hair hanging partly loose in disorder about her neck, her skirt ungracefully kilted up.
“Ain’t you goin’ to bring that water? Have I got to wait another hour?” she cried, ignoring Prescott.
Jernyngham rose and moved away. Returning, he disappeared into the kitchen with a dripping pail and Ellice’s voice was raised in harsh upbraiding. Then the man came out, looking a trifle weary, though he sat down by Prescott with a smile.
“These things should be a warning, Jack,” he said. “Still, one has to make allowances; this hot weather’s trying, and Ellice got a letter that disturbed her by the last mail. I didn’t hear what was in it, but I suspect it was a bill.”
Prescott nodded, because he did not know what to say. Mrs. Jernyngham had, he gathered, been unusually fractious for the last week or two, and Cyril was invariably forbearing. Indeed, Prescott sometimes wondered at his patience, for he imagined that his comrade had outgrown what love he had borne her. The man had his virtues: he was rash, but he seldom failed to face the consequences with whimsical good-humor.
“Your friends are going to-morrow,” Prescott told him. “They understand that you will write home and explain your reasons for remaining.”
“I suppose I’ll have to do so, though it will be difficult. You see, to give the reasons that count most would be cruel. If it’s any comfort to my folks to think favorably of me, I’d rather let them. I’ve made a horrible mess of things, but that’s no reason why others should suffer.”
Prescott glanced round at the dilapidated house, the untidy stable, the door of which was falling to pieces, and the wagon standing with a broken wheel. There was no doubt that Jernyngham was right in one respect.
“Jack,” Cyril resumed, “your manner gives me the impression that you’ll be sorry to lose your visitors.”
“I shall be sorry. I pressed them to stay and I think they’d have done so, only that Mrs. Colston was against it.”