He brought back with him to Bournemouth a great astonishment at being yet alive, hope which he had forfeited many times in each single hour. Also, acute memory of an instant when presence of mind had prompted him to haul at the right sheet in an emergency, and Stuart had favoured him with a sudden curly smile, peculiarly his own, and a brief word of approval. And now Sebastian underwent sensations of weary flatness and depression, inhabiting once more the luxurious suite of rooms engaged by his father at the Boscombe Hotel. He debated all the while what thing he could do to win again that quick smile from Stuart. He wanted that man's approval--more than aught else he wanted it--would force it somehow, no matter by what extravagance of action. He believed Stuart despised him, and the thought cut like rain-rods in a north-easterly. "If he doesn't despise me, then why won't he tell me more about his--his ideas?"
But on no subsequent visit to the Haven, was Stuart to be drawn. "My creed is the wrong sort for an engaged young man; better leave it alone. By the way, you promised that I should see your fiancée."
"You'll see her to-morrow, if you're anywhere about. The whole Menagerie are swarming over in the excursion bus, to view this interesting spot. Letty and her mother and father will be with them. No, not me, thanks; I couldn't stand three solid hours of the Earwig and the Cabbage-rose." Sitting on the window-sill of the bungalow, mournfully jabbing tobacco into his pipe, he favoured Stuart with a vivid account of the 'Menagerie,' as he chose to term the boarding-house wherein his beloved dwelt.
"It's a ramshackle building stuck among pine-trees, a mile or two out of Bournemouth; and the proprietress--landlady--hostess--whatever you call her, has no more idea than Adam of management. She advertised in the papers, by way of an original start: 'Charming home-like residence for the summer months; croquet, tennis, and private bathing-hut; terms moderate; run on Bohemian lines!' That last statement fetched the victims. Such a crew!"
"Which of your prospective family-in-law was attracted by the Bohemian lines?" queried Stuart, enjoying the recital.
It transpired that Mrs. Johnson had caught sight of the advertisement, and had remarked to her husband, one breakfast time, "Matthew, we are getting into a Groove. What we want, what Letty wants, is Bohemian society. The best Bohemians, naturally. Here's our chance. I've heard they take liqueur in their morning tea, instead of milk and sugar, like Christians!" Mr. Johnson had here stated firmly that nothing would induce him to do that; and Letty had further propounded: "whether they'll like the sort of people _we_ are?" And her father had replied with his favourite remark: "We're as good as other folks, my girl, if we like to consider other folks as good as us. And that's logic!"