"He is a good sort of fellow," she answers. "There's no doubt about that. Aunt Hetty likes him very much. And he's clever, Claude; he can do ever so many things."
"I dare say he can," says Mr. Molyneux, throwing back his head and quickening his pace. "But you needn't have got so very intimate. We could have done very well without him to-day."
"He's Mr. Carey's pupil," remarks Bee quietly. "Aunt Hetty couldn't invite Mr. Carey and leave out Tim."
"Well, we could have been jolly enough without Mr. Carey. It's a mistake, I think, to see too much of this Tim Crooke; he isn't a gentleman, and he oughtn't to expect us to notice him particularly."
"He doesn't expect anything; we like him; he's our friend." The soft pink deepens on Bee's cheeks, and her ripe lips quiver a little. She loves Claude with all her heart, and thinks him the king of boys; but, for all that, she won't let him be unjust if she can help it.
Claude tramps on over sand, and pebbles, and seaweed, with lips firmly compressed and eyes gazing steadily before him. Bee, as she glances at him, knows quite well what Claude feels when he looks as if his features had got frozen into marble. And she knows, too, that he will be painfully, frigidly, exasperatingly polite to her all the evening.
Matters cannot go on like this, she says to herself in desperation. Claude arrived only yesterday, and here they are beginning his holiday with a dreadful disagreement. She has been counting the days that must pass before she sees him; writing him little letters full of sweet child-love and longing; wearing a pinafore over her newest frock, that it may be kept fresh and pretty for his critical eyes. And now he is here, walking by her side; and she has offended him.
Is it Heaven or the instincts of her own innocent little heart that teach this girl tact and wisdom? She doesn't proceed to inspire Claude with a maddening desire to punch Tim's head, by recounting a long catalogue of Mr. Crooke's perfections, as a more experienced person would probably have done. But she draws a shade closer to her companion, and presently he finds a tiny brown hand upon his white flannel sleeve.
"You dear old Empey," she says lovingly, "I've been wanting you for, oh, such a long time!"
The frozen face thaws; the dark grey eyes shine softly. "Empey" is her pet name for him, an abbreviation of "Emperor;" and he likes to hear her say it.