Part 14 (1/2)
”Not a bit of it. Let 'em rip. Why should they monopolize you?”
”It will be awfully unpleasant meeting Mr. Wesson after this.”
”It is always unpleasant meeting Wesson.”
”I shan't know what to say.”
”Don't say anything.”
”I shan't be able to look him in the face.”
”That's a bit of luck for you.”
”You aren't much help, Jimmy.”
”The subject of Wesson doesn't inspire me somehow--I don't know why.
Besides, you've simply got to say you changed your mind. You're a woman. It's expected of you.”
”I feel awfully mean.”
”What you want to do is to take your thoughts off the business. Keep your mind occupied with something else. Then you'll forget all about it. Keep talking to me about things. That's the plan. There are heaps of subjects. The weather, for instance, as a start. Hot, isn't it?”
”We're going to have a storm. There's a sort of feel in the air. We'd better go back, I think.”
”Tus.h.!.+ And possibly bah!” said Jimmy, digging the paddle into the water. ”We've only just started. I say, who was that man I saw you talking to after lunch?”
”How soon after lunch?”
”Just before the rehearsal. He was with your father. Short chap with a square face. Dressed in gray. I hadn't seen him before.”
”Oh, that was Mr. Galer. A New York friend of father's.”
”Did you know him out in New York?”
”I didn't. But he seems to know father very well.”
”What's his name, did you say?”
”Galer. Samuel Galer. Did you ever hear of him?”
”Never. But there were several people in New York I didn't know. How did your father meet him over here?”
”He was stopping at the inn in the village, and he'd heard about the abbey being so old, so he came over to look at it, and the first person he met was father. He's going to stay in the house now. The cart was sent down for his things this afternoon. Did you feel a spot of rain then? I wish you'd paddle back.”
”Not a drop. That storm's not coming till to-night. Why, it's a gorgeous evening.”
He turned the nose of the boat toward the island, which lay, cool and green and mysterious, in the middle of the lake. The heat was intense.
The sun, as if conscious of having only a brief spell of work before it, blazed fiercely, with the apparent intention of showing what it could do before the rain came. The air felt curiously parched.
”There!” said Molly. ”Surely you felt something, then.”