"Old fool!" blurted out Mr. Graham with alarming ferocity and suddenness. "A woman like that ought to be kept indoors when other people are enjoying themselves, and only taken out in a churchyard on a chain. Fit for nothing else!"
"Arthur! What are you talking about?" said his wife, naturally startled.
"Well," he said, then had to swallow and choke. "Well, I bought one of those paper snakes just to encourage the lad and set things going a bit. Then I let it run out as I passed a dull-looking group that seemed not to be enjoying themselves. And—and——"
"Well, Arthur?"
"A wretched woman turned round and called me an impudent old scoundrel—told me she didn't want any grey-haired married men after her girls."
"I don't believe it! I can't! She meant somebody else. Don't you feel sure she must have meant her remark for some other passer-by, Mrs. Bradford?" said Mrs. Graham, much agitated by his annoyance.
Mrs. Bradford eyed Mr. Graham with stolid thoroughness. "I think she must. He doesn't look at all like that. But my husband used to say that the sedate middle-aged-looking ones were often the worst, so perhaps she may have thought the same."
"If she did, she was an idiot," said Mrs. Graham; then abruptly changed the subject. "Oh, there's Godfrey Wilson! I suppose he often comes through here on his way to his rooms."
"Yes, that's it. No fear of his wanting to dance with the girls on the promenade nowadays," answered Mr. Graham, beginning to recover himself by degrees. "Well, Lizzie, I think we've had enough of this, don't you? Shall we go in and have a bit of supper? Then I will see Mrs. Bradford and Miss Ethel home."
But as they walked away, he could not refrain from casting a backward glance at the decent woman struggling with her unruly air-balloons, and a sense of disappointed joie de vivre came over him once more. "I wish to goodness the whole bag o' tricks would blow away into the sea," he said. "I'd willingly pay the piper. I'm sick to death of seeing the things bob up and down in the wind."