Well, this little row was soon over as far as Mother and Aunt Gerty were concerned. George’s scolding was short and sweet, Aunt Gerty said, and she couldn’t possibly dislike him more than she did already. But Ariadne could not get over her disgrace for ages. She still wouldn’t stir out of the house, but I went out regularly and policed Lady Scilly and Simon. Of course this contretemps to Ariadne has had the effect of throwing them into each other’s arms worse than ever. They became inseparable. If Lady Scilly had only known it, Simon’s being near her made her look quite old and anxious, whereas she made him look young and bored.
One morning I stood and watched them leaning over the wooden rail of the quay. Everybody leans there in the mornings, it’s fashionable, and if you lean a little forward or backward you can either see or not be seen by the person who is hanging over it a few yards further on. The boats were as usual unloading their big haul of herrings, and the sleepy-eyed sailors (they have been up all night!) were sitting smoking lazily on the edges of the boats. Lady Scilly was in white linen, so awfully pure and angelic-looking that the little boys dabbed her with fish-scales as they passed her. She was talking to Simon about money earnestly, and took no notice. She was telling him that Lord Scilly likes money so much that he didn’t ever like to let it out of his hands. What business of Simon Hermyre’s is it, I should like to know, what Lord Scilly chooses to do with his money? Everybody seems to think Simon is going to be rich, because he is the son of Sir Frederick Hermyre, but that is no criterion. He always seems to have plenty of pocket-money, but I still think it mean of a full-grown woman to borrow money of a boy.
“Do let me have the pleasure,” he kept saying, and “Do let me!” and goodness knows why, for she seemed to be in no hurry to prevent him! I suppose it is why people like Simon so much, that he always seems to be trying to do what they want in spite of themselves.
“Then that is settled, thank the Lord!” I heard him say at last. (My sailor buffer between me and her had begun to talk to a man below, and rather drowned their conversation.) “Just look at that sheet of silver on the floor of the boat—all one night’s haul! Suppose it was shillings and half-crowns?”
“Yes, only suppose! And the sailors treading carelessly about in it, as you might in the train of one of my silver-embroidered dresses! It is very like a full court-train, isn’t it, the one you are going to have the privilege of paying for?”
Simon said yes it was, but he didn’t seem to like her quite so much as he did since she gave in and let him pay her bill. He seemed to have grown a little bit older all of a sudden, he had a sort of aged, pinched look come over his face.
Then I saw, I positively saw, the thought of my sister Ariadne come there and make him handsome and boyish again, and I wriggled past my sailor and came round behind her and said, “How do you do?”
Lady Scilly having done with Simon for the moment, left him and went to speak to Mr. Sidney Robinson and George, who had just come up from their bathe.
“How is your sister?” Simon asked me.
“Very well, thank you—at least I mean not very well——”