“Where?” I asked, looking around.
“Young man’s fancy,” said Mrs. Anderson with a laugh of tolerant amusement, “lightly turning to thoughts of love. Look up on the barn there.”
I looked where she pointed, and saw a boy of about eighteen standing on the roof of the barn gazing off into space through a field glass. He had a white flag tied to his right wrist, which he was waving over his head, like the soldiers do when they signal.
“Who is he and what is he doing?” I asked.
“That’s Peter, the boy who helps around the stable,” replied Mrs. Anderson. “He’s sending messages to his lady love. A certain combination of flourishes means ‘I love you,’ and another means ‘Meet me to-night,’ and so on. He told John, my chauffeur, about it, and John told me.”
“How silly!” said I, with a laugh for poor lovesick Peter. “Who is the object of his affection?”
“Some servant girl from the next estate,” replied Mrs. Anderson. “They carry on their affair through field glasses and with signals. They think they are having a thrilling romance.”
“Disgusting!” said I. “How could any girl make such a fool of herself where everybody can see her!”
Mrs. Anderson laughed indulgently, but I could feel her scorn underneath it. “Some girls will sell every scrap of dignity they have for what they consider a good time, my dear,” she said, laying her hand on my arm in a motherly way.
We left Romeo on the barn flourishing out his messages in the late March sunshine and wandered over to the next estate. There was a new litter of prize bull pups over there and Mrs. Anderson had promised that I should see them before I went home. A creek divided the two estates, which we crossed on a little foot bridge. The path led along beside the creek for a while until the little stream widened out into a beautiful pond, big enough for boating. A pier had been built at one side of the pond, running out into the water. Someone was standing out on the end of the pier, and as we came up we saw that we had discovered the other half of the romance. A girl, with a field glass held to her eyes and a white flag tied around her right wrist, was signalling in the direction of the Anderson barn, the roof of which was visible in the distance, beyond Mrs. Anderson’s apple orchard.