When questioned by the General on this subject, Saltash declared airily that he never made any.

“If I do, I never stick to them, so what’s the use?” he said.

“How weak of you!” said Maud.

And he threw her the old half-tender, half-audacious look, and tossed the subject banteringly away.

He was the first to make a move when the careless meal was over, but not to go.  He sauntered forth and lounged against the door-post smoking, while Bunny and Sheila talked of tennis and golf, and Maud listened with well-disguised patience to the old General’s oft-repeated French reminiscences.

And then when the tea was cold and forgotten and Sheila was beginning to awake to the fact that it was growing late, there came a sudden, ringing laugh across the lawn and Toby scampered into view with little Molly on her shoulder and Eileen running by her side.  She was dressed in white, and she looked no more than a child herself as she danced across the grass, executing a fairy-like step as she came.  The tiny girl’s tinkling laughter mingled with hers.  Her little hands were fondly clasped about the girl’s neck; she looked down into her face with babyish adoration while Eileen, the elder child, gazed upward with a more serious devotion.

General Melrose interrupted his narrative to look at the advancing trio.  “My Jove, Mrs. Bolton,” he said, “but that’s a pretty sight!”

Sheila also ceased very suddenly to converse with Bunny, while Saltash made a scarcely perceptible movement as though he braced and restrained himself in the same instant.

“The prettiest picture I’ve seen for years!” vowed the General.  “How that little Larpent girl changes!  She is like a piece of quicksilver.  There’s no getting hold of her.  How old is she?”

“She is nearly twenty,” said Bunny with the swiftness of ownership.

“Nearly twenty!  You don’t say so!  She might be fourteen at the present moment.  Look at that!  Look at it!” For Toby was suddenly whizzing like a butterfly across the lawn in a giddy flight that seemed scarcely to touch the ground, the little girl still upon her shoulder, the elder child standing apart and clapping her hands in delighted admiration.

“Yes, she is rather like fourteen,” Maud said, with her tender smile.  “Do you know what she did the other day?  It was madness of course, and my husband was very angry with her.  I was frightened myself though I have more faith in her than he has.  She climbs like a cat, you know, and she actually took both those children up to a high bough of the old beech tree; I don’t know in the least how she did it.  None of the party seemed to think there was any cause for alarm till Jake came on the scene.  He fetched them down with a ladder—­all but Toby who went higher and pelted him with beech nuts till he retreated—­at my urgent request.”

“And what happened after that?” questioned Saltash, with his eyes still upon the dancing figure.  “From what I have observed of Jake, I should say that an ignominious retreat is by no means in his line.”