"Well, couldn't you manage to go there to-morrow? You see," said Patrick drearily, "it's so much more fun if there are a lot of people."
"Do you think so?" asked Olwen, surprised. "I don't mean that it wouldn't be fun to go with your party, of course—but as a general rule, I like it better when it's only just a few people, who all know one another awfully well."
"Well, it wouldn't be that, anyway, because of that beast Buckland."
"He's terribly foul, isn't he?" said Olwen sympathetically. "We all simply loathe him. Why do you have to have him?"
Patrick drew a long breath.
"Well, you see, my father and mother, rather unfortunately, are separated, and mother got me—I was about eleven at the time it all happened, and I suppose father thought a kid of that age might be rather a bore to look after—and then she went to Egypt, and I spent my holidays with aunts and people, which was extraordinarily beastly, most of the time, and then when she came home again I was sent to Sherborne—where I am now, you know—and at first she had a flat in London and I used to go there for the holidays; then my father rather chipped in and said he'd like to have a go at me, so I went to him for a time or two, and that was all right. He lives in Scotland, and he taught me to fish. But this year, I spent the Easter hols. with mother and she was rather worried about expense and things, and said she was going to sell the furniture and get rid of the flat, and she seemed to think it would be rather fun to wander about for a bit, and a friend of hers called Mrs. Wolverton-Gush told her about this place, and said she'd be out here in August. As a matter of fact, she's just arrived at some villa or other, quite near."
Patrick stopped abruptly and seemed to find it difficult to go on. So Olwen said:
"Yes, I see. And where does the poisonous Buckland come in?"
"This ass of a woman, the Wolverton-Gush one—well, she's frightfully nice really, I expect, but you know what I mean— It was her idea. She introduced him to mother, and sort of put it into her head that it would be a frightfully good idea to take him on as holiday tutor for me. If you ask me, Buckland was out of a job—and no wonder—and being more or less at a loose end, he worked it for all it was worth. Mother's the most frightfully generous person, and I expect she gives him a jolly good screw."
"I don't see what he does to earn it."
"Absolutely nothing. And he eats like a hog."
"Yes, doesn't he? Gwennie noticed that. She's rather greedy herself, so of course she notices it in other people."
"One expects a kid of eight to be greedy. Buckland lets mother pay for his drinks, too, and anything extra—like if we go in to St. Raphael and have ices. Nowadays I always say I don't want an ice, if they suggest it, so as to do him down."
"I don't wonder. Does it succeed?"
"Not always. Once they went without me. Of course, mother didn't twig at all. She just thought I really didn't want an ice."
"Of course."
"I don't think she even realises how much I hate the fellow."
"Probably she doesn't, or she'd get rid of him," said Olwen, trying to make it sound like an assertion and not a question. "But you'll tell her, won't you, Patrick?"
"Oh, I expect so, sooner or later." His voice was unconvincing. "I don't suppose she really likes him herself, you know. It's just that she's so frightfully kind-hearted."
"P'raps she doesn't want to disappoint her friend—that Mrs. Thingamy-Gush who's out here—and after you've gone home, it won't matter."
Patrick turned and looked at her, for the first time in the conversation, and the faint expression of strain that habitually lay round his eyes and mouth was lightened for a moment.
"D'you know, I never thought of that. Of course, that's what it is. She'd hate to disappoint Mrs. Wolverton-Gush, I know. And mother's so awfully sort of—confiding, and liking everyone to be jolly and all that—that she simply doesn't realise how frightfully the brute needs kicking."
"Hallo, Olwen!"
Dulcie, swimming with quick, feeble little strokes, appeared round the point.
"Hallo," Olwen responded unenthusiastically.
Patrick stood up.
"Well——"
He dived head first into the water.
"Good one!" squeaked Dulcie. "Mr. Waller, wasn't that a splendid dive?"
"Very good style indeed," critically replied Denis, who had come round the point too late to see it.
He perceived Olwen still on the rock, and pulled himself out of the water to join her. He was bored with Dulcie, although he had tried to be nice to her, and he was attracted by Olwen's beauty and by her air of good-breeding—two qualities to which he was peculiarly susceptible.
"Haven't you been in the water yet?"
"Not yet. Did you see David and Gwennie? They've gone right over to the island."
"We saw them. They're climbing about there, with your father."
"I think I'll go too," said Olwen, getting up.
Denis was disappointed. Probably she wanted to get away from him. Well, she was only a child—what did it matter whether she liked him or not? He stood up politely as Olwen in her turn dived.
"Hallo, Mrs. Romayne," said Dulcie from the sea. "Oh, hallo, Mr. Buckland."
Her greetings remained unanswered, and doubtless unheard, in the lively noise made by Mrs. Romayne's screams of laughter and Buckland's derisive return-shouts.
They were splashing one another merrily, disputing the possession of a scarlet rubber ball.
Denis stood laughing quietly from the rock, in order to look and feel as if he were taking part in whatever was going on. One of his many fears was that of being ignored, or left out of things, because he was in a dependent position.
"Buck, I simply hate you!"
The ball, unsteadily flung by Mrs. Romayne, went wide of the mark, and it was her son, Patrick, who went after it and threw it back at her.
She flung it at the tutor again, and this time it caught him on the head.
"All right, I'm going to duck you for that!"
"You brute—you're not to!"
"Mother, catch!"
Patrick had the ball again, and was coming towards her, but she ignored him, her whole attention given to the horse-play with Buckland, as he caught hold of her by the shoulders and she struggled with him, her bathing-dress coming half off in the process.
"Look at you, you're not even decent!"
"Whose fault is that?"
Denis Waller's smile had become a very fixed and unnatural one. He was not in the least amused, but rather disgusted, and the look on Patrick Romayne's face hurt him.
But almost at once the boy turned and swam away. Only Denis noticed that he had gone.
(3)
Coral Romayne—she had long ago decided that her name should be Coral instead of the baptismal Amy—shuffled off her wet bathing-dress under the shelter of a very smart bathing-cloak with green-and-white stripes. Pulling on her pale-rose pyjama-trousers, she reflected, as she did many times in the course of every day, that her figure was simply marvellous.
It was.
Coral