“How careless!” said Mark. “It was for my sister.”
“You never told me you had a sister,” said Robinette, as they walked together, Lavendar wheeling his bicycle and Carnaby sulking behind them.
“I am blessed with two; one married now; the other, my sister Amy, lives at home.”
“Well, you see, in spite of all our questions the first time we met, we really know very little about each other,” she went on lightly. “It takes such a long time to get thoroughly acquainted in this country. Do they ever count you a friend if you do not know all their aunts and second cousins?”
Lavendar laughed. “Willingly would I introduce you to my aunts and my uttermost 140 cousins, and lay the map of my life before you, uneventful as it has been, if that would further our acquaintance.”
Even as he spoke a hateful memory darted into his thoughts, and he reddened to his temples, until Mrs. Loring wondered if she had said anything to annoy him.
Some fortunate accident at this point ordered that Carnaby should meet a friend, another middy about his own age, and they set off together in quest of a third boy who was supposed to be in the near neighbourhood.
As soon as the lads were out of sight Lavendar found the jests they had been bandying together die on his lips. “I’m going down deeper; I shall be out of my depth very soon,” he thought to himself, as he walked in silence by Robinette’s side.
“Let us come down to the beach again; we can’t go to the station for half an hour yet,” she said. “I like to look out to sea, and realize that if I sailed long enough I could step off that pier, and arrive in America.”