"She is really pretty, and so distinguished looking," the other girl joined in. "I hope she'll give no end of balls at the Court. Just look at her now!"
Involuntarily following the direction of the speaker's glance, Elsie saw Mrs. Verdon and Arnold. He was putting something into her plate, and she was gazing up at him with eyes that seemed no longer wanting in colour and expression. Whether he returned that gaze or not, Elsie, at the moment, could not tell. But, being a woman in love, she jumped to the conclusion that he did.
Moreover, there were Lily's words to ring in her ears like a chime: "In fact, he has confessed as much to my father."
A sudden heart-sinking made her inexpressibly weary of her surroundings, and then she rallied, angry with herself—rallied just in time to see Jamie taking a second plateful of cherry-tart.
"Not a bit more, little man," she said resolutely. "Everybody else has finished. You wouldn't like to sit here and eat all alone. I think we had better get up and come away from the dishes."
"I want to go in the boat; Mr. Wayne said I might."
Jamie really felt that he had had enough, and the boat at this moment was better than the tart.
"Well, dear, you shall go. We'll walk down to the river-side."
There was an island on the river, which was, as Arnold had said, a wonderful place for wild-flowers. It was a very small islet, overgrown with bush vegetation; willow-boughs drooped down into the water; rushes, sedges, and wild trailing things flourished in uncontrolled luxuriance. Sometimes men and boys landed on it when they went fishing in a leaky old boat, or pulled round it to get water-lilies; but it was rumoured that Mr. Wayne would make improvements there.
Already, instead of the old boat, there was a new one, dark green with a stripe of white, moored against the landing-stage at the end of the meadow; and old Giles, who had worked on the Wayne estate for years, was waiting to take anybody for a row.