"Important developments. Come to see me as soon as you arrive."
Larssen scribbled an answer and handed it to the steward for despatch.
The boy was thinking over the coming cruise of the "Starlight." Suddenly he exclaimed: "I've got an idea! Invite her on board my yacht!"
Larssen smiled. "That's a very practical test for her!" he said.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE REINS HAD SLIPPED
The Italian garden at Thornton Chase was perfect in its artificiality. It sloped down towards Richmond Park in a series of stately terraces with box-hedge borders trimmed so evenly that not a twig or leaf offended against the canons of symmetry. They were groomed like a racehorse. Centred in a square of barbered lawn was a fountain where Neptune drove his chariot of sea-horses. The Apollo Belvedere, the Capitoline Venus, Minerva, and Flora had their niches against a greenhouse of which the roof formed the terrace above—a greenhouse where patrician exotics held formal court.
Olive was feeding a calm-eyed Borzoi from the tea-table when Larssen and his little boy arrived. The pose was that of a Gainsborough portrait—she had dressed the part as closely as modern dress would allow. Sir Francis was leaning back in an easy-chair with one leg crossed squarely over the other knee, and in spite of country tweeds and Homburg hat, he was somehow well within the picture. But Lars Larssen, with his broad frame and his masterful step, was markedly out of harmony with that atmosphere of leisured artificiality.
A lesser man would have been conscious of his incongruity—not so with Larssen. He forced his personality on his environment. He made the Italian garden seem out of place in his presence. A sensitive would almost have felt the resentment of the trimly correct hedges and shrubs and the classic statues at being thrust out of the picture on Larssen's arrival.
For some time the conversation progressed on very ordinary tea-table lines. Olive made much of the little boy—petted him, sent in for special cakes to tempt him with, showered a host of questions on him about school and games and hobbies. Sir Francis exchanged views on weather, politics, and the coming cricket season with his guest. The latter subject mostly resolved itself into a monologue on the part of the baronet, since cricket held no more interest for Larssen than ninepins; but he listened with polite attention while Sir Francis expounded the chances of the Australian Team (he had been to Lord's that morning to watch them at preliminary practice), and his own pet theory of how the googly ought to be bowled.