The fresh air of a June day came whispering across the water and the shaven lawns. Later it would be very hot, but as yet the coolness of the dew was on the grass; the sun beamed softly gold through fresh green leaves.
Esmé smiled a little, for, coming into the breakfast-room, she saw that Jimmie Gore Helmsley meant to have no more to do with her. He did not come to her table, get her fruit, hang over her lovingly. Sybil, fresh as the day itself, was listening to his caressing voice, tasting her first plate of delicately-flavoured flattery.
Feminine eighteen comes gaily to its breakfast. It has had no weary thoughts to trouble it, no fading skin to cream and powder.
What was she going to do to-day? Oh! anything and everything; boat, play tennis, idle, watch the people.
The silver sweetness of the morning called to Sybil. She would have breakfast out, under the trees. She saw tables ready there. Cool damp of dew, a gentle cloud of midges and flies did not deter Sybil. Cold tea and a narrow choice of breakfast, brought by a languid footman, were enough for her. Gore Helmsley, with the morning peevishness which comes when we are forty, brushed mosquitoes from his hair, stabbed irritably at congealing bacon and leathery egg, listened with tempered enthusiasm to Sybil's picture of ideal life.
Out in the woods somewhere, breakfast and lunch and dinner with the lovely trees overhead, and the lovely grass at one's feet, and no stuffy rooms and cold roast beef, but eggs and fish and tea, she chattered.
Captain Gore Helmsley said, "With pneumonia sauce," and said it irritably. He sat watching the girl's fresh face, the sparkle of her grey eyes, and presently deemed her worth even outdoor breakfast.
As cigarettes banished midges his voice grew soft again; he knew how to listen, how to make youth talk of itself. He planned the day out; he bought a box of sweets for Sybil to crunch.
The girl was excited, pleased by her conquest. She had seen Jimmie in attendance on well-known beauties; had never dreamt the black eyes would look at her with open admiration; or that the man would talk of lunches together, of a drive somewhere in his car, of singling her out.
She thanked him warmly, with flushed cheeks which made her lovely. "Take her to Brighton some day, down to the sea, for a picnic! Oh, how lovely, and how good of him; he had so much to do, so many friends."