Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 7.pdf/295



, having fully matured a Hint suitable for the occasion, dropped it in the afternoon while Lewisham was superintending cricket practice. He made a few remarks about the prospects of the first eleven by way of introduction, and Lewisham agreed with him that Frobisher i. looked like shaping very well this season.

A pause followed and the headmaster hummed. "By-the-bye," he said, as if making conversation and still watching the play; "I, ah―understood that you, ah―were a stranger to Whortley."

"Yes," said Lewisham, "that's so."

"You have made friends in the neighbourhood?"

Lewisham was troubled with a cough and his ears―those confounded ears―brightened. "Yes," he said, recovering. "Oh yes. Yes. I have."

"Local people, I presume."

"Well, no. Not exactly." The brightness spread from Lewisham's ears over his face.

"I saw you," said Bonover, "talking to a young lady in the avenue. Her face was somehow quite familiar to me. Who was she?"

Should he say she was a friend of the Frobishers? In that case Bonover, in his insidious amiable way, might talk to the Frobisher parents and make things disagreeable for her. "She was," said Lewisham,