"Oh, yes, sure to be, with a day like this. Some fellows say you can get just as much effect on a dull day, using a larger stop, but, of course, that's all nonsense really. I say, I'm not boring you, am I?"
He hardly waited to hear her impassioned negative before going on, still discussing photographic methods.
It was quite true that Alex was not bored, although she was hardly listening to what he said. But his voice went on and on, and it flattered her that he should want to talk to her so exclusively, as though secure of her sympathy.
"… And they say colour-photography will be the next thing. I believe one could get some jolly good effects down here. Young Eric is all for messing about with beastly paints and stuff, but I don't agree with that."
"Oh, no!"
"My plan is to get hold of a real outfit, as soon as they get the thing perfected, and then be one of the pioneers, you know. I say, I hope you don't think this is awful cheek – "
"Oh, no!"
"This isn't a bad place for experiments, I will say. You see, you can get the sea, and quite decent scenery, and any amount of view and stuff. I say, what ages they are finding us," he broke off suddenly.
Alex felt deeply mortified. Evidently Noel was bored, after all. But in another minute he began to talk again.
"I shouldn't be surprised if one of these days I tried my hand at doing sort of book stuff. You know, photographs for illustrations. I believe it's going to pay no end."
"What sort of things?"
"Oh, scenery, you know, and perhaps houses and things. Sure I'm not boring you?"
"No, indeed, I'm very interested."
"It is rather interesting," Noel agreed simply.
"Another thing I'm keen on is swimming. Rather different, you'll say; but then one can't do one thing all the time, and, of course, the swimming is first class at school. I went in for some competition and stuff last term; high diving, you know."
"Oh, did you win?"
"Can't say I did. Young Eric got a cup of sorts, racing, but I just missed the diving. Some day I shall have another try, I daresay. You know, I've got rather a funny theory about swimming. I don't know whether you'll see what I mean at all – in fact, I daresay it'll sound more or less mad, to you – but I believe we do it the wrong way."
"Oh," said Alex, wishing at the same time that she could divest herself of the eternal monosyllable. "Do tell me about it."
"Well, it's a bit difficult to explain, but I think we're all taught the wrong way to begin with. It doesn't seem to have occurred to any one to look at the way fishes swim."
Alex thought that Noel must really be very original and clever, and tried to feel more flattered than ever at being selected as the recipient of his theories.
"I believe the whole thing could be revolutionized and done much better – but I'm afraid I'm always simply chockfull of ideas of that kind."
"But that's so interesting," Alex said, not consciously insincere.
"Don't you have all sorts of ideas like that yourself?" he asked eagerly, filling her with a moment's anticipation that he was about to give the conversation a personal turn. "I think it makes life so much more interesting if one goes into things; not just stay on the surface, you know, but go into the way things are done."
Alex thought she heard some one coming towards their hiding-place, and wanted to tell Noel to stop talking, or they would be found, but she checked the impulse, fearful lest he should think her unsympathetic.
The dogmatic schoolboy voice went on and on – swimming, photography, cricket, and then photography again. Alex, determined to feel pleased and interested, could only contribute an occasional monosyllable, sometimes only an inarticulate sound, expressive of sympathy.
And at the end of it all, when she was half proud and half irritated at the thought that they must have been sitting there in the semi-darkness for at least an hour, Noel exclaimed:
"I say, they are slow finding us. I should think it must be quite tea-time, shouldn't you? How would it be if we came out now?"
"Yes, let's," said Alex, trying to keep the mortification out of her voice.
They emerged into the sunlight again, and Noel pulled out his watch.
"It's only a quarter past four. I thought it would be much later," he remarked candidly. "I wonder where they all are. I expect they'll want to know where we've been hiding, but you won't give it away, will you? It's a jolly good place, and the others don't know about it."
"I won't tell."
Alex revived a little at the idea of being entrusted with a secret.
"Do you often play hide-and-seek?"
"Oh, just to amuse the girls, in the summer holidays. They've spent the last three summers with us, you know. Next year I suppose they'll go to America, lucky kids!"
"I'd love to go to America, wouldn't you?" Alex asked, with considerable over-emphasis.
"Pretty well. I tell you what I'd really like to do – I shall do it one day, too – make a regular tour of England, with a camera. I don't know whether you'll think it's nonsense, of course, but my idea has always been that people go rushing abroad to see other countries before they really know their own. Now, my plan would be that I'd simply start at Land's End, in Cornwall, just taking each principal town as it came on my way, you know, and exploring thoroughly. I shouldn't mind going off the main track, you know, if I heard of any little place that had an old church or castle or something worth looking at. I don't know whether you're at all keen on old buildings?"
"Oh, yes," Alex said doubtfully; "I've seen Liège and Louvain, in Belgium – "
"Ah, but I'm talking about English places," Noel interrupted her inexorably. "Of course the foreign ones are splendid too, and I mean to run over and have a look at them some day, but my theory is that one ought to see something of one's own land first. Now take Devonshire. There are simply millions of old churches in Devonshire, and what I should do, would be to have a note-book with me, and simply jot down my impressions. Then with photographs one might get out quite a sort of record, if you know what I mean – "
Alex was rather glad that her companion should be talking to her so eagerly as they came in sight of a group of people on the terrace.
"Here are the truants," said Mrs. Cardew, laughing, and Diana Munroe exclaimed that Aunt Esther had called them all to tea, and they had given up further hunt for them.
"Noel always finds extraordinary places to hide in," she added rather disparagingly.
It was evident that Noel was not very popular with the American cousins.
"That boy would be very good looking if he had not that terrible cast," Alex overheard one lady say to another, as the visitors were waiting on the steps for the pony-carriage to take them away. The grey-haired man next to whom Alex had sat at lunch, and who evidently did not know any of the group of children apart, nodded in the direction of little Archie, flushed and excited, trying to climb the terrace wall, surrounded by adoring ladies.
"That's the little chap for my money."
"Isn't he a darling? That's one of Isabel Clare's children – so are the two girls in blue. I couldn't believe anything so tall was really hers."
"Oh, yes – I noticed one of them – rather like her mother?"
Alex felt sure that she ought not to listen, and at the same time kept motionless lest they should notice her and lower their voices.
She felt eagerly anxious to overhear what the grey-haired gentleman might have to say after the very grown-up way in which she had made conversation with him at lunch, and having been a very pretty and much-admired drawing-room child in her nursery days, could not altogether divest herself of the expectation that she must still be found pretty and entertaining.
But