Part 33 (2/2)

He ran down to the landing-stage, having given his old bat and third best fis.h.i.+ng-rod to his brother to occupy his attention. Toady Lion was in an unusually adoring frame of mind, chiefly owing to the new bat with the silver inscription which Hugh John had brought home with him. If that were Toady Lion's att.i.tude, how would it be with the enthusiastic Cissy Carter? She must be more than sixteen now. He liked grown-up girls, he thought, so long as they were pretty. And Cissy was pretty, Prissy had distinctly said so.

The white punt b.u.mped against the landing-stage, but the brown was gone. However, he could see it at the other side, swaying against the new pier which Mr. Davenant Carter had built opposite to that of Windy Standard. This was another improvement; you used to have to tie the boat to a bush of bog-myrtle and jump into wet squashy ground. The returned exile sculled over and tied up the punt to an iron ring.

Then with a high and joyous heart he started over the moor, taking the well-beaten path towards Oaklands.

Suddenly, through the wood as it grew thinner and more birchy, he saw the gleam of a white dress. Two girls were walking--no, not two girls, Prissy and a young lady.

”Oh hang!” said Hugh John to himself, ”somebody that's stopping with the Carters. She'll go taking up all Cissy's time, and I wanted to see such a lot of her.”

The white dresses and summer hats walked composedly on.

”I tell you what,” said Hugh John to himself, ”I'll scoot through the woods and give them a surprise.”

And in five minutes he leaped from a bank into the road immediately before the girls. Prissy gave a little scream, threw up her hands, and then ran eagerly to him.

”Why, Hugh John,” she cried, ”have you really come? How could you frighten us like that, you bad boy!”

And she kissed him--well, just as Prissy always did.

Meanwhile the young lady had turned partly away, and was pulling carelessly at a leaf--as if such proceedings, if not exactly offensive, were nevertheless highly uninteresting.

”Cissy,” called Priscilla at last, ”won't you come and shake hands with Hugh John.”

The girl turned slowly. She was robed in white linen belted with slim scarlet. The dress came quite down to the tops of her dainty boots.

She held out her hand.

”How do you do--ah, Mr. Smith?” she said, with her fingers very much extended indeed.

Hugh John gasped, and for a long moment found no word to say.

”Why, Cissy, how you've grown!” he cried at length. But observing no gleam of fellow-feeling in his quondam comrade's eyes, he added somewhat lamely, ”I mean how do you do, Miss--Miss Carter?”

There was silence after this, as the three walked on together, Prissy talking valiantly in order to cover the long and distressful silences.

Hugh John's usual bubbling river of speech was frozen upon his lips.

He had a thousand things to tell, a thousand thousand to ask. But now it did not seem worth while to speak of one. Why should a young lady like this, with tan gloves half-way to her elbows and the s.h.i.+niest shoes, with stockings of black silk striped with red, care to hear about his wonderful bat for the three-figure score at cricket, or the fact that he had won the golf medal by doing the round in ninety-five?

He had even thought of taking some credit (girls will suck in anything you tell them, you know) for his place in his cla.s.s, which was seventh. But he had intended to suppress the fact that the fifth form was not a very large one at St. Salvator's.

But now he suddenly became conscious that these trivialities could not possibly interest a young lady who talked about the Hunt Ball in some such fas.h.i.+on as this: ”He is _such_ a nice partner, don't you know! He dances--oh, like an angel, and the floor was--well, just perfection!”

Hugh John did not catch the name of this paragon; but he hated the beast anyhow. He did not know that Cissy was only bragging about her bat, and cracking up her score at golf.

”Have you seen 'The White Lady of Avenel' at the Sobriety Theatre, Mr.

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