It was wonderful to feel clean again, to get the stubble off his cheeks, and to plash the cool water over his head and about his ears. When he had finished he felt measurably nearer to Patsy. He found laid out also clean shirts and neckcloths. Two complete suits of clothes were folded in an open chest of drawers. Patsy had evidently looted to some purpose.
Stair's first instinct was not to put on any of these things till he had been assured that they were there with the consent of Adam Ferris. But he realized that he had already used the razors, and besides it would be idiotic, in his present awkward position, to strain at any gnats after swallowing such a camel as the marriage on the Colvend shore.
Besides, he had the sense to see that any obstinacy would terribly offend Patsy. She had evidently thought much about the matter, and whether her father knew or did not know was secondary to the great need in Stair's heart of making Patsy happy. He did not, however, realize how long had been her thoughts on the subject, or that the suits of clothes which he supposed to have been lifted from her father's drawers, had been talked over by Patsy and Kennedy McClure in the garden at Hanover Lodge, ordered at a first-class London tailor's, with such approximate indications as size, height, and general proportionateness of body could supply. Patsy had paid for them out of her own money, and it was for the sake of the Princess, who was curious about parcels, that the case of shaving utensils had been lettered in gold with the initials of Adam Ferris.
An hour later, Stair came forth like a bridegroom from his chamber. Patsy, who had been on the watch, called out "Oh!" And if she had permitted her heart to guide her actions, she would have clung about his neck. He looked so noble. But all that she said was just, "I am proud of you, Stair—very proud!"
And, rightly considered, that was a great deal for Patsy to say.
That day was a memorable one for Stair Garland. Patsy was charming and gay as she alone knew how to be. Having scanned the sea horizon with the Dollond glass to make sure that the firth was absolutely free from ships, they gave themselves up to the delights of the sunshine and summer air. Now they dipped into little coves, among dainty shells and glistening sand-breadths, where they sat down cross-legged and played at "jecks" or "jacks"—one pebble in the air and lift five. Five in the air and lift one—with all sorts of intricate devices and variations, such as catching the tossed stones on the back of the hand, collecting them with a sudden side swoop, and so forth till Patsy was tired. Her nimble fingers left Stair's stiffer members far behind.
But it was different when a white stone was poised on the top of a rock, for Stair could send it rolling down nine times out of ten before Patsy had never so much as touched the target. Again on sheltered stretches Stair could send a smooth, flat stone skipping from one side to the other of the still bay, which Patsy declared was no sort of sport because hers, though every bit as well thrown as Stair's, invariably plumped to the bottom with a little farewell "cloop" as soon as they encountered the water. "You get all the best stones!" Patsy cried at last, vexed at her lack of success. Whereupon Stair handed over his ammunition to her, which "clooped" and sank as before.
"Then you do something to them—you must!" said Patsy, and with this luminous reasoning she turned and set off back to the old Rathan tower to get a book. Thereafter they read. That is, Patsy spun white cobwebs with her needle and Stair read to her—Shakespeare it was, and the play "The Tempest."
She did not know—she could never have guessed that Stair could read like that. She often stopped him to ask the meaning of a passage, and never did she ask in vain. Sometimes, indeed, she could have two or three interpretations to choose from, for in the Bothy Stair had gone over the play with Theobald's notes, comparing them with Pope's and Johnson's.