“You’re a fool, Piers,” said Sir Beverley.

Piers laughed, a gay, indifferent laugh.  “That all?” he said lightly.

“No, it isn’t all.”  Sir Beverley’s voice had a curious forced ring, almost as if he were stern in spite of himself.  “I came to ask—­and I mean to know—­” He broke off.  “What the devil have you done to your shoulders?”

Piers’ hands unlocked as if at the touch of a spring.  He slipped down backwards into the bath and lay with the water lapping round his black head.  His eyes, black also, and very straight and resolute, looked up at Sir Beverley.

“Look here, sir; if there’s anything you want to know I’ll tell you after dinner.  I thought—­possibly—­you’d come to shake hands, or I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to let you in.  As it is,—­”

“Confound you, Piers!” broke in Sir Beverley.  “Don’t preach to me!  Sit up again!  Do you hear?  Sit up, and let me look at you!”

But Piers made no movement to comply.  “No, sir; thanks all the same.  I don’t want to be looked at.  Do you mind going now?  I’m going to splash.”

His tone was deliberately jaunty, but it held undoubted determination.  He kept his eyes unswervingly on his grandfather’s face.

Sir Beverley stood his ground, however, his black brows fiercely drawn.  “Get up, Piers!” he ordered, his tone no longer blustering, but curtly peremptory.  “Get up, do you hear?” he added with a gleam of humour.  “You may as well give in at once, you young mule.  You’ll have to in the end.”

“Shall I?” said Piers.

And then suddenly his own sense of humour was kindled again, and he uttered his boyish laugh.

“We won’t quarrel about it, what?” he said, and stretched a wet hand upwards.  “Let’s consider the incident closed!  There’s nothing whatever to be fashed about.”

Sir Beverley’s thin lips twitched a little.  He pulled at the hand, and slowly Piers yielded.  The water dripped from his shoulders.  They gleamed in the strong light like a piece of faultless statuary, godlike, superbly strong.  But it was upon no splendour of form that Sir Beverley’s attention was focussed.

He spoke after a moment, an odd note of contrition in his voice.  “I didn’t mean to mark you like that, boy.  It was your own doing of course.  You shouldn’t have interfered with me.  Still—­”

“Oh, rats!” said Piers, beginning to splash.  “What’s a whacking more or less when you’re used to ’em?”

His dark eyes laughed their impudent dismissal to the old man.  It was very evident that he desired to put an end to the matter, and after a moment Sir Beverley grunted and withdrew.

He had not asked what he wanted to know; somehow it had not been possible.  He had desired to put his question in a whirl of righteous indignation, but in some fashion Piers had disarmed him and it had remained unuttered.