"It's Harry Bennet," said Helen Eversleigh, gazing after him, and waving her hand.
"How are you, Harry?" Gilbert had shouted, as the boat went past.
Bennet, now some distance away, rested on his oars, and waved his hand to Helen, who was still regarding him, as was also Kitty; but it was the latter at whom he looked. However, he did not seek to talk, but watched the punt until it disappeared round a bend of the stream. His face thereupon expressed mingled feelings—a tremendous admiration of Kitty Thornton, and an intense hatred of Gilbert Eversleigh, whom he proceeded to curse aloud when out of sight, being the chief.
"He's a fine oarsman, a fine athlete," observed Helen, as the punt went on down-stream. She referred to Harry Bennet, whom she had known all her life, and for whom she had a liking. "I can't believe he is the bad lot they say he is. If only he was not so keen on racing and betting! It's said that he is losing all his money and ruining himself. It seems such a pity!" And she sighed.
"Yes," said Kitty, glancing at her friend; but she did not continue the conversation. She knew of Helen's feeling for Bennet, but it was a feeling she herself did not share.
As for Gilbert, he said nothing at all either good or bad about the man whom he understood very well was his rival. But he had heard what was being said about Bennet quite openly, the sum and substance of which was that Harry had become a reckless and inveterate gambler.
The girls had heard something of this too, but only in the most general way. All three, however, were cognisant of the main facts of Bennet's life: how his father had died when he was a child, and how he had been petted, spoiled, and indulged by a foolish doting mother; how he had consequently grown into a wilful, headstrong, intractable boy; how, as he neared man-hood, he showed a gift of marvellous physical strength, in the development of which there for a time lay an illusory hope of his improvement; how, in his first year at the university, he had been a member of the crew which, after a long series of Oxford triumphs, had at last given a victory to the light blues; and how, on coming into his property a few months later, he had forthwith left Cambridge and taken to racing with frantic zest.
"It is such a pity," Helen went on; "but I think that so long as he keeps up his rowing there is a chance for him."
But now they were back at Molesey, and nothing more was said of Bennet at the time. At dinner in the evening, however, Helen spoke of their having seen him on the river, and repeated what she had said about it being a hopeful sign that he kept up his rowing.
"I think he doesn't row very much now," said her brother Ernest, who was a solicitor like his father, and expected soon to be a partner in the Lincoln's Inn firm. "He simply can't have the time. His stable and his horses and his betting-book absorb him entirely. I wonder what that new horse of his—he calls it 'Go Nap'—will do for him. He's sure to back it heavily."