Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/77

Rh thing outside my power. Besides, Maud would not wish to stand in my way. It would be selfish of her, and I am wronging her to think that she could be that; she means her friendship to help and not hinder me."

And Lucia went on again with her quick springy tread, looking her very best. But she had taken a step, and knew it. The knowledge perhaps helped her towards looking her best.

The field was full, for, as Mrs. Wilson remarked more than once to Margery after a magisterial survey of the occupants of the two rows of chairs that stretched completely round the ground, "all Brixham seems to be here." It was at the moment that she made this discovery for the fourth time that Edgar Brayton entered by the carriage road, and it might have been observed that Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Vereker, and Mrs. Majendie all got up with a glance at their respective daughters, who followed them like lambs to the pasture rather than the slaughter, and made their way to the refreshment-tent, which was so near to the place at which motors drew up that the ices tasted faintly, but unmistakably, of petrol.

There the three lambs, led by their respective mothers, met, and re-entered into intimate converse together, while the mothers, kept, so to speak, a weather-eye on the tent-door by which it was hoped that Lord Brayton would presently enter to have tea. Little did they know where and with whom he had already had it.

Mrs. Wilson had remarkably good sight, and was noted for having quite lately written out the Lord's Prayer on a piece of paper that was the size of a threepenny-bit. It was no wonder, then, that it was she who, through the open tent-door, perceived Lord Brayton on the other side of the ground and knew that for the present all three, or all six of them, had been foiled and baffled. She had excellent manners, and though naturally eager to be off again, listened without the slightest show of impatience to Mrs. Majendie's account of the Handel Festival, to which she had taken Nellie, and of which she had to describe "the gloriousness" at length. Not till Mrs. Majendie had quite finished (or till Mrs. Wilson really thought she had) did she tell Margery that they were missing all the cricket, and had better go back to their seats again. Whether Mrs. Majendie and Mrs. Vereker suspected something, and were determined not to lose sight of her, or whether on their own account they felt that it was hopeless to linger longer among the petrol-ices, is uncertain—their motives were probably mixed—but they both exclaimed that they too felt that they were missing all the cricket, and accompanied Mrs. Wilson.