“Did mother——” he began.
“Not till it was all over; I had hard enough trouble bribing my way into that ‘Club du Siècle.’”
“Jove!” he exclaimed; “you unfold beautifully! You don’t show yourself all at once. It’s just like a magnificent strange flower coming out of the bud. I must make a new set of judgments on you every little while.”
He ignored Walter, although the little boat threw them close together. Jerry gave a significant glance towards the boy, but Richard would not have it.
“He’s all right” he laughed aloud. “Walter is on; he might as well hear everything.”
Walter leered at them knowingly.
“It makes my flesh creep,” said Jerry. Walter’s simple brain had no translation of that speech, but Richard understood. Walter’s dark statement of the morning that these two before him were merely clandestine philanderers had irritated the woman almost into blows; and even yet, when she understood that this mentally ill-balanced brother of hers had to be humoured, the low interpretation put upon the very wholesome and natural relationship between Jerry and Richard was nauseating. It was the knowing leer that made her flesh creep; and, of course, Richard understood.
“It is necessary, I fear,” said he appealingly.
“I understand. Go on; I’ll try to get used to it.... You were saying something sweetly pretty about me which I shouldn’t want to miss for anything. You were comparing me to a budding sunflower, I think.”
“A sunflower, yes; provided one had never seen a sunflower,” he explained. “In a flash I understand something about you which has puzzled me heretofore. You know, I began by analyzing you—on the hill at Naples.”