“Mother?” he said, “Reggie! I—I really couldn’t help it, but—I couldn’t be rude, you know! Those people that you’ve been talking about—the girl you think so pretty—well, they were sitting near me while I was having my afternoon coffee,”—Moore loved of all things to have his coffee out in the garden by himself at a little table—“and listening to the band, and I heard them talking about the excursion to Oberwald, where we went last week, you know, and they were all in a muddle about it. They wanted to walk part of the way, and they had a map that they couldn’t make out; and at last one of them—the youngish-looking man, turned to me and said, ‘If you have been here some time, perhaps you can explain this route to us,’ and of course I could, and I put them right in a minute. I told them the best way was to drive to that funny little inn where we had dinner, you remember, and then to walk the rest up to the view place, and get their carriage again when they came back; and they thanked me awfully, and—” Here Moore paused at last, half out of breathlessness, half, I shrewdly suspected, because he felt a little shy of relating the sequel of his story. “They’re not bad sort of people,” he concluded somewhat lamely, “and I think the girl is rather pretty when you see her close to.”
“Rather pretty,” I repeated; “why, she’s perfectly lovely, my dear boy. But you haven’t finished. What more have you to tell? Did they invite you to be their guide?”
I spoke jestingly, but, to my surprise, I saw that my words had hit the mark, for Moore’s fair face, which was already flushed with excitement, grew still redder.
“Not exactly,” he said; “but I saw they’d have liked to ask me, so I said if it would be any good I wouldn’t mind going with them—it’s to-morrow they want to go—and—and—that I daresayed my sister would come too.”
“Moore!” I exclaimed, aghast. And “My dear boy!” said mother.
Our exclamations put Moore on the defensive.
“Well,” he said, rather indignantly, “I don’t see that there’s any harm in it. You’ve been awfully wanting to know them—”
“I’m sure I haven’t,” I interrupted.
“Well, any way, you were awfully down on me because I didn’t think the girl was the most beautiful person in the world. And I don’t think she is stuck-up, after all I’m sure you’d like her very much, and they seemed quite pleased when I said you’d come too—quite jolly about it. I told them mother couldn’t walk so far, and that we had come here because she’d been ill.”
“Indeed! and what did you not tell them?” I said, in an icy tone. But my heart misgave me as soon as I had uttered the words—Moore looked so thoroughly unhappy. Mother, as usual, interposed to smooth things down.