"Come in and have some breakfast with us, just as you are," urged Mrs. Mynors, leaning from the open casement.
"Yes, yes," cried Tony, gripping his arm joyfully.
"Don't mind if I do," answered Gerald, and ascended the stairs leisurely, while the boy dashed up to a higher floor, to put down his towels. "Tony met a pal down on the sands," remarked Rosenberg, as he shook hands with Virginia's mother. "I have taken two tickets on the char-à-banc for them to go to Arundel. If you will stay with Pansy the arrangements are quite complete."
"That's a splendid idea," replied Mrs. Mynors with satisfaction. "You are a good general, Gerald."
He looked somewhat doubtful, as though a cloud passed over his mood.
"I hate it," he said, "but I must do something. If I don't, she will go back to that crazy beast to-morrow as sure as the sun rises, and what can we do then?"
"My dear Gerald, why do you say that you hate it? You are not going to do anything to which anybody could take exception!"
"No, but I am going to trick her with a put-up job. If she ever found that out she would dislike it. I have seen so much of her lately, and her sincerity and simplicity are almost terrible."
Virgie's mother smiled rather superciliously. "Yet she can keep her own counsel," she remarked incisively. "I have done all that I knew to secure her confidence, and never one word has she let slip. But for the fact that she never mentions him and will not let me see letters from him, I should hardly suspect——"
"You are sure?" He turned from the window with intent expression. "Remember, I am going almost entirely upon what you tell me——"