They had a house-guest, a friend of her stepfather's, an Englishwoman, a novelist. She was a brisk, ruddy-skinned creature, with crisp sentences and sturdy legs in thick stockings, and she was taking a keen interest in American sport. "Oh, I say," she greeted Honor, "isn't this bad for your match?"
"Yes, Miss Bruce-Drummond, it is. We were hoping for a dry field. They're more used to playing in the mud than we are. But it'll be all right."
"I'm fearfully keen about it.—No, thank you—my mother was Scotch, you see, and I don't take sugar to my porridge. Salt, please!" She turned to Stephen Lorimer. "I've been meaning to ask you what you think of Arnold Bennett over here?"
Honor's stepfather flung himself zestfully into the discussion. He liked clever women and he knew a lot of them, but he had been at some pains not to marry one. Mildred Lorimer, beside the shining copper coffee percolator, looked a lovely Vesta of the hearth and home.
Honor wished she might take a pleat in the fore-noon. She didn't see how she was going to get through the hours between breakfast and the time to start for the game. It was a relief to see Jimsy coming across the lawn at ten o'clock. She ran out to meet him.
"Hello, Jimsy!"
"'Lo, Skipper. Isn't this weather the deuce?"
"Beastly, but it doesn't really matter. We're certain to——" she broke off and looked closely at him. "Jimsy, what's the matter?"
"Oh ... nothing."