"Dolores, don't you hope uncle Dick will go? Did you hear what Sir Barry says?"
Dolores does not answer; perhaps the breeze carries Blondine's voice in an opposite direction, perhaps Roy's childish talk proves more agreeable.
Presently Hester comes to take Roy away, and Dolores saunters idly back to Sir Barry and his fair companion. Blondine is highly delighted; Sir Barry has seen and asked uncle Dick if he would join the party, and of course uncle Dick had said yes. Any affair Traleigh approved was in uncle Dick's mind commendable.
"Will it not be splendid! Dolores, are you not pleased?"
And Sir Barry laughs lightly at Dolores' answer.
"Blondine, you would think it splendid if a shower of rain should descend this moment and drench us."
Blondine is watching the white clouds float across the azure sky, and wishing the sun may shine as brightly for the next couple of days. Sir Barry looks at the massive gold watch in his pocket, and says by the time they lunch and get ready it will be time to start. So Blondine unfurls her large white cotton umbrella, tucks Dolores' unwilling hand under her arm, and laments the smallness of the parasol's compass. If it was possible she would offer a part to Sir Barry; as it is she advises him to pull his hat well over his face, for freckles on a man's face is something Miss Gray detests.
"But some people consider them a mark of beauty; that is the reason I am trying to cultivate some," Sir Barry says solemnly.
Dolores gives one swift side glance at the handsome face of the man walking the other side of Blondine. He happens, at the same instant, to be looking at her. Dolores is angry at the blush she feels rising to her face. The idea of his watching her that way; it is too bad he cannot find some one else to gaze at all the time.
"I do wish you would hold the umbrella a little on my side," she says coldly to Blondine.