He bent towards her with a slightly theatrical offer of his arm, and they moved off to a seat near the ivy-covered wall, looking towards the distant rapids.
Lady Forsyth glanced after them with a passing twinge of concern.
The girl—a fairly recent acquisition of Sheila’s—was shy and clever, with a streak of dark blood in her veins. She had done brilliantly at Oxford, and was now qualified to take up the medical work in India on which she had set her heart. Sheila had acquired her while going through a course of massage and magnetic healing, for which she showed so distinct a gift that she had serious thoughts of taking it up in earnest. A vague idea of going out with Monica had been simmering in her brain for the past week; but she had not spoken of it till to-night.
‘Wonder what’s come to old Mark,’ mused Ralph pensively, stirring his coffee. ‘Thought this picnic arrangement was all for his benefit⸺’
‘Rather so!’ Mark’s voice answered him, as he and Macnair strolled round the corner of the house. ‘Hurry up with the coffee, Mums. I love dabbling my oars in the sunset. Lenox, old chap, you two might go on ahead and give the word.’
They went on readily enough; and the rest soon followed them through the wilder spaces of the garden, down rocky steps to the bay, where sand and rough grass shelved gently to the water’s edge. Here they found two boats already afloat, with Maurice and Monica—she was commonly called Mona—established in one of them.
Lady Forsyth, nothing if not prompt, privately consigned Ralph to that boat, Mark and Keith to her own. It was a heavenly evening, and she thanked goodness they were going to have it to themselves: quite a rare event since Maurice Lenox had discovered that superfluous Miss Alison.
‘Coming to row stroke for us?’ she asked as Mark handed her in.
He shook his head, smiling down at her.