Warner promptly fished an automatic out of his hip pocket, and Halkett took it and examined it.
"So I'm to do the Wild West business after all," he said gayly. "Right you are, old chap. I know how it's done; I've read about it in your novels. You wait till your enemy takes a drop, then you get the drop!" He laughed at his British joke. And, having no hip pocket, he stowed away the lumpy bluish weapon in a side pocket of his coat.
"Now, don't let me interfere with your daily routine," he continued. "I shall do very well here in the arbor while you lead your Harem toward the Olympian heights."
"Sometimes I feel like pushing 'em off those cliffs," muttered Warner. "All right; I fancy you'll be snug enough in the garden, here with Ariadne, till I return. We shall have the whole house to ourselves after dinner. The Harem migrates to Ausone for overnight to do street sketches tomorrow, and returns the next morning for a general criticism. So if you'll amuse yourself——"
"I shall be quite comfortable, thanks. If anybody climbs the wall to pot me, we'll turn loose on 'em, this time—won't we, old girl?"—caressing Ariadne, who had returned to his knee.
Half an hour afterward Warner went away in the wake of the Harem; and at the end of the second hour he gave them a final criticism before they started for Ausone.
Much good it did them; but they adored it; they even adored his sarcasms. For the Harem truly worshiped this young man—a fact of which he remained uncomfortably conscious, timidly aware that warier men than he had been landed by maidens less adept than they.
So it was with his usual sense of deep relief that he saluted the Harem, picked up his own kit and canvases, and wandered at hazard through a little poplar grove and out of it on the other edge.
A wild meadow, deep with tasseled grasses and field flowers, stretched away before him, where swallows sailed and soared and skimmed—where blue lupin, bouton d'or, meadowsweet, and slender, silvery stems crowned with queen's lace grew tall, and the heliotrope perfume of hidden hawkweed scented every fitful little wind.
But what immediately fixed his attention was a distant figure wading waist-deep amid the grasses—a slim, brilliant shape, which became oddly familiar as it drew nearer, moving forward with light and boyish grace, stirring within him vaguely agreeable recollections.