“Jolly little I do for her.”
Joyce laughed.
“Really? If you’ve grasped that Lionel, it’s well with you.”
“It isn’t altogether well with me. I’m a bit moithered. It would do me good to have a heart-to-heart talk with you.”
“Thanks.” She smiled demurely. “But why especially with me?”
“Because you’re such a practical little dear.”
“Am I? I wonder. Perhaps I am only practical where others are concerned.”
They were walking along the high-road which follows the river for a few hundred yards. And this bit of road happened to be almost the centre of the Pomfret property. So far as eye could see every acre—good, bad and indifferent—belonged to the Squire. Lionel said eagerly:
“Just so. And as this matter concerns me, you could give sound advice, couldn’t you?”
Obviously he firmly believed her to be wholly unconcerned in his affairs. And she wasn’t. Her quickening pulses told her that. But she said lightly: