CHAPTER XX
PROFESSOR LEIGHRAIL PAYS US A CALL
The afternoon was waning, and Dimbie and I were beginning to wake up and trying to ignore the fact that Amelia was watching us through the ever useful point of vantage, the pantry window, when Professor Leighrail drifted through the gate, round the broom bush, and stood staring at the cottage.
That he hadn't seen us in the profound shade cast by the apple tree was evident from his not too polite remark addressed to the cottage—
"Worse than I imagined—an overgrown pest-house!"
We laughed aloud, and he walked to us with outstretched hands. His dress attracted my immediate attention, as it was a little unusual—black cloth trousers, white linen coat, large, badly-fitting, brown shoes with different coloured laces, and a top hat. The last he removed with a flourish, and his first observation seemed characteristic of the little I knew of him.
"Guessed I should find you like this, still playing at Romeo and Juliet, and you look," he put on a pair of spectacles, "you look, seated against that background of gnarled old branches, just as foolishly sentimental and happy as any young couple could look." He did not wait for any reply, but rattled on. "I found you without the slightest trouble. I knew I should."
"Pine Tree Valley is not a large—"
"Certainly not," he interrupted, "but had it been a town and not a village, I should have found you just as easily. I said to a villager—man in corduroys—'Where is the residence of a lady and gentleman who smile, who live on sunshine and walk on air?'"
"And did he understand you?" we asked, determined not to smile.