Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/355

Rh them. He was a great lover of girls, and they blossomed from timidity under his hearty influence.

“Ain’ it flippin ’ot?” drawled Cresswell, who had just taken his M. A. degree in classics: “This bloomin’ stuff’s dry enough—come an’ flop on it.”

He gathered a cushion of hay, which Louie Denys carefully appropriated, arranging first her beautiful dress, that fitted close to her shape, without any belt or interruption, and then laying her arms, that were netted to the shoulder in open lace, gracefully at rest. Lettie, who was also in a closefitting white dress which showed her shape down to the hips, sat where Leslie had prepared for her, and Miss D’Arcy reluctantly accepted my pile.

Cresswell twisted his clean-cut mouth in a little smile, saying:

“Lord, a giddy little pastoral—fit for old Theocritus, ain’t it. Miss Denys?”

Why do you talk to me about those classic people—I daren’t even say their names. What would he say about us?”

He laughed, winking his blue eyes:

“He’d make old Daphnis there,”—pointing to Leslie—“sing a match with me, Damoetas—contesting the merits of our various sheperdesses—begin Daphnis, sing up for Amaryllis, I mean Nais, damn ’em, they were for ever getting mixed up with their nymphs.”

“I say, Mr. Cresswell, your language! Consider whom you’re damning,” said Miss Denys, leaning over and tapping his head with her silk glove.

“You say any giddy thing in a pastoral,” he replied, taking the edge of her skirt, and lying back on