Louise had an affectionate smile for this gentle grievance against creation, and slipped her arm about the black satin waist. “Of course Baby will take after you, dear,” she promised. “I’ll make him if he doesn’t naturally. He takes after me when he throws elephants around, but he takes after his father when he opens his big blue eyes and grins a trustful, gummy grin. He’s going to be quite like Keble when he acquires teeth and manners. Katie says so, and she’s the authority on Baby . . . Perhaps you’ll let me take after you a little, too. But I’m an awful hoyden.”
“You’re so clever, aren’t you!” exclaimed Lady Eveley. “We knew it, of course, from Keble.”
Louise was serious. “The worst of that,” she mused, “is that clever people always have a naughty side. And I’m naughty.”
“But if we were perfect our husbands would find us dull in the long run, don’t you think?”
“There’s that, of course,” Louise agreed. How completely every one took it for granted that there would be a long run!
They had reached the new boat-slip, and were joined by Mrs. Windrom, Girlie, and Miriam. Dare and Alice followed, and the talk became topographical, Mrs. Windrom finding still more objects for Girlie to look at. Louise felt that Mrs. Windrom was even explaining the landmarks to her.
Girlie’s attention, however, kept straying to the boats, which were hugging the shaded shores and advancing at a leisurely rate. In the first boat was an object on which Girlie’s eyes could always focus themselves with an effortless nicety. This object was her fiancé, Ernest Tulk-Leamington, an oldish young man, who was Lord Eveley’s secretary and a rising member of the Conservative Party. The first to step out of the boat, he was followed by Mr. Windrom and a freckled, orange-haired youth who proved to be Mr. Cutty.
“Any fish?” cried Mrs. Windrom. Her husband showed signs of becoming prolix, while Mr. Cutty, behind his back, stole his thunder by surreptitiously holding up a forked stick on which two apologetic trout were suspended.
When the necessary ceremonies were effected, Mr. Windrom declared that you could never be sure, in untried waters, what flies the fish would rise to. He went on the principle of using a Royal Coach when in doubt, but he had tried Royal Coach for an hour without getting a strike, and had ended by putting out a spinner, by means of which he had caught——
He turned. “Those two.” But he saw that the irreverent Mr. Cutty had already displayed the catch, and he was a little vexed at the anticlimax, as well as at the showing, which was undoubtedly poor, viewed against a dark mass of water and mountain, with a half dozen animated ladies as spectators. Dare had sought Louise’s eyes, and they smiled at the fulfilment of her fears.