“If he had been a scout he would have known how to swim; there isn’t a member of my troop that can’t swim. And if he had been a scout he wouldn’t have been afraid to go home. Connie has the best home in the world, Mrs. Bennett——”
“I have done everything for Connover——”
“But you see, he was afraid to go to it—and so he came here with us.”
The cheerful call of the bugle told that supper was ready. Through the trees they could see the scouts assembling until each stood at his place at the long board under trees whose foliage had begun to dim in the fading light.
“It’s a pretty sight,” she said, pausing and raising her lorgnette to her eyes. “What are they all standing for?”
“Till you have taken your seat.”
Smilingly she started toward them with all the cultured affability of a true guest. She knew how to do this thing, and she was quite at home now. Mr. Ellsworth knew that her manner covered a sense of humiliation, but she carried it off well and so together they came out of the woods into the clearing.
“I was saying that he came here and—and we want him to stay here. Will you let him join us, Mrs. Bennett?”
“Would he have two blankets over him at night?” she asked after a moment’s dismayed pause.
The question was not a surrender; it was a flag of truce, meaning that she would discuss terms.