“I have been in England so little during the past few years——” he began.
“I hope you haven’t quarreled with your sister?” she put in promptly.
“What, quarrel with Betty? I?” And he laughed at the conceit, though he wondered what Cynthia would say if, on Monday, he deviated a few miles from the Hereford and Shrewsbury main road and showed her Scarland Towers and the park in which the marquis’s prize stock were fattening.
“Oh, is she so nice? And pretty, too, I suppose?”
“People generally speak of her as good-looking. It is a recognized fact, I believe, that pretty girls usually have brothers not so favored——”
“What, fishing now as well as rowing? Didn’t I say you had a Norman aspect?”
“Consisting largely of a scowl, I understand.”
“But a man is bound to look fierce sometimes. At least, my father does, though he is celebrated for his unchanging aspect, no matter what happens. Perhaps he may look like a Sphinx when he is carrying through what he calls ‘a deal,’ but I remember very well seeing lightning in his eye when an Italian prince was rude to me one day. We were at Pompeii, and this Prince Monte-something induced me to look at a horrid fresco under the pretense that it was very artistic. Without thinking what I was doing, I ran to father and complained about it. My goodness! I wonder the lava didn’t melt again before he got through with his highness, who, after all, was a bit of a virtuoso, and may have really admired nasty subjects so long as they conformed to certain standards of art.”
“Some ideals call for correction by the toe of a strong boot—I share Mr. Vanrenen’s views on that point most emphatically.”
Medenham’s character was one that transmuted words to deeds. He drove the skiff onward with a powerful sweep that discovered an unexpected shoal. There might have been some danger of an upset if the oars were in less skillful hands. As it was, they were back in deep water within a few seconds.