From the top of the steps Yate caught a pretty glimpse of Sabbath repose. The lawn and the standard roses were formal enough, but there were acacia trees on the left, and, under them, grouped artistically, an Indian drugget, a tea table, and long basket chairs. In one of these Carol lay curled up like the letter S, with head deep in a frilled cushion. Harry, from his point of vantage, whispered, "She reminds me of a lettuce." The soft green of a shimmering tea gown tipped with transparencies of lemon-tinted gauze was gratifying to parched eyes in over-ripe midsummer.
Yate frowned. He was not on friendly enough terms to appreciate a joke which might be overheard.
Harry proceeded to shout a jovial self-announcement, upon which she lifted her eyes from what seemed an absorbing theme.
Yate's quick glance, in the moment of introduction, observed the book was upside down. Her thoughts had evidently been fixed on something more intensely earnest still. Rosser, perhaps, he thought to himself—he had already begun to detest Rosser.
Her face brightened when she greeted them, and she commenced talking with almost excited volubility.
"I'm so glad you've come."
Harry's expression widened to a grin; his mouth was one of those expansive ones which are born grinning. It sealed for him the reputation of good nature.
"Sunday in the suburbs is such a dull thing, one feels quite asphyxiated, even to the marrow," she said, addressing herself to Harry, and veering weathercock-wise in the direction of Tyndall.
"I thought ladies saved that day for gossip and scandal?" said Yate, dropping, after the fashion of male monsters, into the smallest of chairs indicated by her. Harry had appropriated a footstool, which brought his grasshopper outlines against the green of her gown, and was already resuming his customary pastime of sucking the knob of his walking stick, a survival of babyhood which was doubtless responsible for the awning-like upper lip wherein lurked his impressive joviality.
"Oh, so they do, but at this season of the year all the women wear their old bonnets and their faded summer gowns—they're not even worth abusing."