Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 16

“We’re rather interested to know what sort of neighbours we’ve got,” she explained frankly. “You know Mr. Arrow, don’t you? What sort of person is he? Is he sociable? Would he care to piny bridge?”

Northfleet met candour with candour, apparently.

“I know Mr. Arrow by sight, but I’ve never spoken to him, so I’ve no idea what his tastes may be. But Miss Arrow will be here in a few minutes, I expect. There’s a good bathing-pool just below here and she comes down every morning about this time. You can ask her, if you like. She’s his niece. I suppose the Dinnets told you that?”

“Yes, I knew that,” Jean admitted. “Do you play ‘Contract,’ Mr. Northfleet?”

“Moderately,” Northfleet replied, in a tone which somehow suggested that he meant what he said, neither more nor less.

“And tennis?”

“Fairly well.”

“And would you join us, if we can get a fourth?”

For the first time Jean detected a faint hesitation in Northfleet’s manner. He seemed to be weighing two things against each other in his mind before he answered; but when he accepted her invitation there was no sign of any afterthought in his tone.

“I shall be very glad if you want me. Only, sometimes I’m not free, you understand. This work of mine keeps me tied by the leg and I couldn’t get away. But any other time I shall be delighted to come.”

“Is Miss Arrow a bridge-player?”

“I’ve never played with her,” Northfleet said cautiously. “But you can ask her.”

“She must find it rather lonely here,” Jean suggested sympathetically.

“Possibly,” Northfleet concurred.

Jean thought she noticed a faint stiffening of his reserve as he answered, and she tactfully dropped the subject of the Heather Lodge party.

“Are you staying long on Ruffa?” she asked.

Northfleet seemed disinclined to give a definite answer to this.

“Oh, for some time yet.”

“And are you quite comfortable here? Is there anything we could do . . .?”

“Nothing whatever, I’m afraid. It’s not a palace, but at least it’s weathertight,” he explained, with a nod towards the shieling. “We’ve had one or two bad gales since I came, but the place has been quite snug. It’s as well, for the wind springs up very quick hereabouts, and it blows hard while it lasts. If you go out in that motor-boat, be sure to run for safety if there’s the least sign of a heavy blow. It’s not a nice coast in a high wind.”

“Dinnet said much the same,” Colin acknowledged.

“He knows what he’s talking about.”

Jean, recollecting that they had interrupted Northfleet in some work, began to fear that they were outstaying their welcome.

“I think we must be moving on, Mr. Northfleet. We’ve still got a lot of exploring to do before lunch, you know.”

Northfleet glanced at his watch.

“Miss Arrow should be here almost immediately,” he said. “Could you stay for a few minutes?”

“If you’re sure she’ll come,” Jean agreed elliptically. “But we mustn’t stay long, Colin, or we’ll be keeping her from her bathe.” Northfleet had been scanning the hillside, and now he made a gesture to draw Jean’s attention.

“There she is.”

Jean followed his indication and saw a figure topping a slope a couple of hundred yards away. Behind it, appearing and disappearing among the bents, was a grey dot. Northfleet drew out his pocket-handkerchief and began to wave to the girl, while Colin watched him with a broadening grin. The girl had halted, with the dog scampering round her; and when Northfleet finished his waving, she made a graceful gesture in reply.

“I understand Morse,” Colin explained, as Northfleet turned and caught him with the smile on his face.

“Oh, you do?” Northfleet returned, without showing the slightest embarrassment.

Colin saw no reason why Jean should not share the joke.

“He’s taken you at your word, Jean. His signal was: ‘The Trents. They won’t stay long’.”

“Well, there’s no harm in that, is there?” Jean pointed out, lest Northfleet should think she was offended. “It’s just what I said myself a minute or two ago.”

Northfleet evidently thought it wisest not to excuse himself in any way, and Jean tacitly approved of his decision. “He’d only have tied himself up in knots if he’d tried,” she reflected. “Much more sensible to let well alone, when he saw we weren’t offended. And I like the way he smiled when Colin caught him out.” Then another idea crossed her mind. “He must know that girl pretty well, I should think. He wouldn’t have done that if she’d been a semi-stranger.”

Jean had not a trace of the pettiness which refuses to recognise excellence in others. Secure in her own good-looks, she never troubled to consider whether another girl outshone her or not. She could admire without a touch of jealousy—a virtue which had earned her a well-deserved popularity with her own sex.

She turned slightly to make an unobtrusive survey of the approaching stranger. At a distance, in her grey shorts and pull-over, Hazel Arrow looked like a slim-built boy; but on a nearer view she turned out to be one of those girls who suit hiker’s kit and look just as feminine in it as in an evening-frock. She picked her way adroitly down a slight rocky declivity, and a glimpse of slim ankles and neat tennis-shoes made Jean smile to herself as she recalled Colin’s dismal prophecy about monstrous boots. At the foot of the little descent Hazel Arrow called her dog to heel and came forward to meet them with a shy friendliness which went straight to Jean’s heart.

“I’m sure I’m going to like this girl,” Jean decided, without further ado.

For a few moments after Northfleet had introduced them they exchanged the usual remarks which serve to bridge the gap between strangers. Then Hazel’s dog—a nondescript animal which had apparently decided to be an Airedale and then suddenly changed its mind—came up and sniffed inquiringly at the hem of Jean’s skirt.

“He’s quite safe,” Hazel hastened to reassure her. “He isn’t much to look at, but he’s very, very wise, and