Young Asshlin eyed the stranger frankly and without embarrassment.
"You're not at the meet?" he said with involuntary surprise. "I'd be there, only mother doesn't let me hunt yet. She thinks I'd break my neck or something," he laughed. "But I'll go to every meet within twenty miles when I'm a man," he added. "There's nothing as good as hunting—except sailing. Are you much of a sailor?"
Milbanke looked back into the bright, fearless eyes and healthy, spirited face, and again a touch of aloofness, of age, damped him. There was a buoyancy in this boy and girl, a zest, an enthusiasm outside which he stood the undeniable alien.
"Yes, I am fond of the sea," he responded; "but probably not as you are fond of it."
Try as he might to be natural and pleasant, his speech sounded stilted, his words staid.
The boy looked at him doubtfully.
"Didn't know there were two ways of doing it," he said, rubbing his face against the cob's sleek neck.
But Clodagh came to her guest's rescue.
"Larry doesn't deserve any credit for liking the sea," she said. "His father was a sailor. You go on to the fields, Larry," she added; "you'll find Nance waiting there. I'll saddle Polly in a second, and be after you with Mr. Milbanke. Run now! you're only wasting time."
Larry hesitated for a moment, then he nodded.