"_Please_ get another partner! I'm busy here! Mrs. Glyn Williams will find you somebody!"
Whereupon Bevis, muttering very uncomplimentary remarks about his hostess under his breath, deliberately passed by several eligible wallflowers, chose out the youngest child in the room, and led her off in a valse.
Merle, who was still an absolute schoolgirl and revelled in anything in the nature of a party, enjoyed her evening supremely. Mavis was very glad when it was all over and she was quiet in bed. Some new element seemed to have entered to-night into her old happy world and to have rubbed the bloom off her innocent friendship with Bevis.
"It was so jolly in the old days when we hunted for primroses and had picnics in Blackthorn Bower!" she thought. "It's not ourselves who have changed, but other people who won't allow us to be the same. Why couldn't things go on as they were? If this is society I don't like it! Oh, dear! I wish we could always stay exactly as we are and never grow up at all!"
When the Christmas holidays were over, a very important decision was arrived at with regard to Clive. For many reasons his parents considered his preparatory school too strenuous for him, and, as he had considerably outgrown his strength, it was arranged to allow him to miss the spring term and to stay at Durracombe until Easter. He was to go every morning to the Vicarage for private lessons from Mr. Carey, and he was to be out of doors as much as possible, drink plenty of milk, and try, as his grandfather expressed it, to 'put on flesh.' Master Clive himself was only too well content to have what he justly considered a continuation of his holidays. He did not mean to be too clever over his lessons at the Vicarage, and, indeed, he planned to make a little work go a long way. Being out of doors as much as possible suited him exactly. He strutted about Durracombe, with a rolling naval walk, making friends with everybody, and telling them he had quite determined to go to sea and become an Admiral. He went out motoring with his grandfather or Dr. Ramsay, and he spent a considerable portion of time with Tom, the old gardener, who was long-suffering in many ways, though roused to wrath by any injury to his young bedding-out plants. Mrs. Ramsay 'mothered' Clive, feeling it was some return for the kindness which Uncle David had shown to her own girls. She grew fond of the young scapegrace and covered his escapades as far as possible, so as not to alarm nervous Aunt Nellie, who would have been much perturbed at some of her grandson's reckless performances.