Part 9 (2/2)

she said abruptly.

”Whom?” said Mrs. Bunting, glancing up at eyes that were suddenly eager, and then following their glance towards Chatteris.

”Your other son,” said the Sea Lady, jesting unheeded.

”It's Harry and Adeline!” cried Mrs. Bunting. ”Don't they make a handsome couple?”

But the Sea Lady made no reply, and leaned back, scrutinising their advance. Certainly they made a handsome pair. Coming out of the veranda into the blaze of the sun and across the trim lawn towards the shadow of the ilex trees, they were lit, as it were, with a more glorious limelight, and displayed like actors on a stage more s.p.a.cious than the stage of any theatre. The figure of Chatteris must have come out tall and fair and broad, a little sunburnt, and I gather even then a little preoccupied, as indeed he always seemed to be in those latter days. And beside him Adeline, glancing now up at him and now towards the audience under the trees, dark and a little flushed, rather tall--though not so tall as _Marcella_ seems to have been--and, you know, without any instructions from any novel-writer in the world, glad.

Chatteris did not discover that there was any one but Buntings under the tree until he was close at hand. Then the abrupt discovery of this stranger seems to have checked whatever he was prepared to say for his _debut_, and Adeline took the centre of the stage. Mrs. Bunting was standing up, and all the croquet players--except Mabel, who was winning--converged on Chatteris with cries of welcome. Mabel remained in the midst of what I understand is called a tea-party, loudly demanding that they should see her ”play it out.” No doubt if everything had gone well she would have given a most edifying exhibition of what croquet can sometimes be.

Adeline swam forward to Mrs. Bunting and cried with a note of triumph in her voice: ”It is all settled. Everything is settled. He has won them all and he is to contest Hythe.”

Quite involuntarily her eyes must have met the Sea Lady's.

It is of course quite impossible to say what she found there--or indeed what there was to find there then. For a moment they faced riddles, and then the Sea Lady turned her eyes with a long deferred scrutiny to the man's face, which she probably saw now closely for the first time. One wonders whether it is just possible that there may have been something, if it were no more than a gleam of surprise and enquiry, in that meeting of their eyes. Just for a moment she held his regard, and then it s.h.i.+fted enquiringly to Mrs. Bunting.

That lady intervened effusively with an ”Oh! I forgot,” and introduced them. I think they went through that without another meeting of the foils of their regard.

”You back?” said Fred to Chatteris, touching his arm, and Chatteris confirmed this happy guess.

The Bunting girls seemed to welcome Adeline's enviable situation rather than Chatteris as an individual. And Mabel's voice could be heard approaching. ”Oughtn't they to see me play it out, Mr. Chatteris?”

”Hullo, Harry, my boy!” cried Mr. Bunting, who was cultivating a bluff manner. ”How's Paris?”

”How's the fis.h.i.+ng?” said Harry.

And so they came into a vague circle about this lively person who had ”won them all”--except Parker, of course, who remained in her own proper place and was, I am certain, never to be won by anybody.

There was a handing and s.h.i.+fting of garden chairs.

No one seemed to take the slightest notice of Adeline's dramatic announcement. The Buntings were not good at thinking of things to say.

She stood in the midst of the group like a leading lady when the other actors have forgotten their parts. Then every one woke up to this, as it were, and they went off in a volley. ”So it's really all settled,” said Mrs. Bunting; and Betty Bunting said, ”There _is_ to be an election then!” and Nettie said, ”What fun!” Mr. Bunting remarked with a knowing air, ”So you saw him then?” and Fred flung ”Hooray!” into the tangle of sounds.

The Sea Lady of course said nothing.

”We'll give 'em a jolly good fight for it, anyhow,” said Mr. Bunting.

”Well, I hope we shall do that,” said Chatteris.

”We shall do more than that,” said Adeline.

”Oh, yes!” said Betty Bunting, ”we shall.”

”I knew they would let him,” said Adeline.

”If they had any sense,” said Mr. Bunting.

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