"I'll come if you'll stand for me. I'm not afraid of any Reggie in the bench show!"
They laughed; Cynthia stretched out a lazy hand for another chocolate; Jacqueline knitted, the smile still hovering on her scarlet lips.
Bending over her work, she said: "You won't misunderstand when I tell you how much I enjoy being at Silverwood, and how nice Mr. Desboro has been."
"Has been."
"Is, and surely will continue to be," insisted Jacqueline tranquilly. "Shall I tell you about Silverwood?"
Cynthia nodded.
"Well, then, Mr. Desboro has such a funny old housekeeper there, who gives me 'magic drops' on lumps of sugar. The drops are aromatic and harmless, so I take them to please her. And he has an old, old butler, who is too feeble to be very useful; and an old, old armourer, who comes once a week and potters about with a bit of chamois; and a parlour maid who is sixty and wears glasses; and a laundress still older. And a whole troop of dogs and cats come to luncheon with us. Sometimes the butler goes to sleep in the pantry, and Mr. Desboro and I sit and talk. And if he doesn't wake up, Mr. Desboro hunts about for somebody to wait on us. Of course there are other servants there, and farmers and gardeners, too. Mr. Desboro has a great deal of land. And so," she chattered on quite happily and irrelevantly, "we go skating for half an hour after lunch before I resume my cataloguing. He skates very well; we are learning to waltz on skates——"
"Who does the teaching?"
"He does. I don't skate very well; and unless it were for him I'd have such tumbles! And once we went sleighing—that is, he drove me to the station—in rather a roundabout way. And the country was so beautiful! And the stars—oh, millions and millions, Cynthia! It was as cold as the North Pole, but I loved it—and I had on his other fur coat and gloves. He is very nice to me. I wanted you to understand the sort of man he is."