Jack was thoughtful. "Up to the present," he said, "it is not necessary to generalize, but thanks all the same."
The Rev. Hugh looked at his son, at the steady eyes and close, firm mouth; the lines were very definite, almost cruel; such men do not have many love affairs. "I think you can take care of yourself," he said.
Jack was perfectly sober. "I think so, too," he agreed.
CHAPTER III
The vicarage at Chilcombe, Jack's home, was a fairly large, well-built house with plenty of ground round it, forming a complete rectangle. Two sides of it (bordering the road) were bounded by seven-foot walls, a third side was a thick, tall hedge, and the fourth (furthest from the house) was a brook, or river—a sort of cross, a big brook or a small river—deeply bordered with willow trees and blackberry bushes. Two close wooden gates in the seven-foot wall opened on to a small brown-gravel drive, which led by a single short curve through a shrubbery of laurel bushes to the front entrance porch. A big room at the other side of the house opened out by French windows on to a lawn. There was a big chestnut tree in one corner of this lawn, with a seat round it; in the summer there were usually two or three hammock chairs spread out in the shade of it also. Jack was lounging in one of these latter the morning after his arrival, while his mother did knitting in a more sedate-looking but less comfortable chair at his side, when Mrs Bevengton and Bessie came round the corner of the house. Mrs Bevengton was the doctor's wife, and Bessie was her daughter. Bessie was fairly tall and distinctly plump—"fatty" Jack used to call her when he was younger; she was not really fat, though not angularly hard; there was no superfluous tissue about her. She could play tennis all day long, run with the beagles, or row two or three miles on the river without getting "done up." She had a good pink colour and dimples on each cheek which were nearly always in evidence, for she smiled at most things. Her hair was light brown and curly; it was always straying out of place and framing her happy, smiling face in little light brown curves.
Bessie said, "How are you Jack?" and Jack answered, "First-class. How are you?"
Mrs Bevengton looked at him critically. "What are you doing now, Jack?" she asked.
"Earning ten bob a week, Mrs Bevengton," he answered, with just a flicker of a smile. The doctor's wife was inclined to be a materialist in worldly matters.
Bessie's dimples burst into renewed prominence, and a frizzy curl strayed out from over her forehead. She said nothing, but her blue eyes danced in the sunlight as she glanced round the three faces in front of her, and endeavoured to suppress the rebellious curl.