“I see,” nodded Tod. “Look here, Bill, I should like to get up a boating party myself; it sounds glorious. How do you set about it?—and where can you get a boat?”
“Temple knows,” said Bill, “I don’t. Let us go and ask him.”
They went across the grass, leaving me alone with Anna. She and I were the best of friends, as the reader may remember, and exchanged many a little confidence with one another that the world knew nothing of.
“Should you like it for Helen?” I asked, indicating her sister and Slingsby Temple.
“Yes, I think I should,” she answered. “But William had no warrant for speaking as he did. Mr. Temple will only be here a few days longer: when he leaves, we may never see him again.”
“But he is evidently taken with Helen. He shows that he is. And when a man of Slingsby Temple’s disposition allows himself to betray anything of the kind, rely upon it he means something.”
“Did you like him at Oxford, Johnny?”
“Well—I did and did not,” was my hesitating answer. “He was reserved, close, proud, and unsociable; and no man displaying those qualities can be very much liked. On the other hand, he was exemplary in conduct, deserving respect from all, and receiving it.”
“I think he is religious,” said Anna, her voice taking a lower tone.
“Yes, I always thought him that. I fancy their mother brought them up to be so. But Temple is the last man in the world to display it.”