“You see, she does things like that,” Mrs. Crosby explained in her friend’s ear.
“Oh, impossible!” Lillian murmured, watching Blanche Remi’s bathing dress glimmer through the green breakers. “Do you suppose Wallie is going in, too?” she added, glancing down the beach.
The young man was sauntering toward them, unconscious of his sister’s scrutiny, his steps directed, probably, toward the men’s bath houses on the left of where the two women sat. He was as lankly dawdling as ever, but Lillian noted, with a vague uneasiness, his usual air of agreeable ennui was supplanted by one of half-wakened interest. The remnant of a smile was on his habitually serious face.
Mrs. Gueste stood up and motioned with her lorgnon. He saw, stared, smiled broadly, delightedly, and hastened toward her.
“I say,” he said, subsiding between them, “this is luck! But why didn’t you let a chap know you were coming a few hours before you landed? What started you, anyway? I thought you had planned for Castle Crag.”
Julia Crosby’s telegram was hot in Lillian’s pocket, and she thought, anxiously, that Julia’s face was conscious enough to give the thing away. But Walter was frankly unsuspicious.
“If I’d known just a day ahead,” he reproached her, “I could have lunched with you as well as not.”
“But your engagement?” Lillian hinted.
“Oh, to bring Miss Remi down for a dip. I was going up for you while she paddled ’round, but now I’ve got you here, too, I won’t have to budge.”
Little as she liked the idea of being thus lumped with Blanche Remi, Lillian made it a point to be lovely.