"Jim! Dorothy, did you ever hear anything like him? Please try to bear with him, for a time, for my sake."
The father of the pair managed to get in a word.
"I trust, Miss Gilbert, that this is not a flying visit you are paying us, but that you have come to stay some time."
"I--I hardly know; my--my movements are uncertain."
"Uncertain!--but, my dear child, what I'm dying to know is what favouring wind of providence it was which blew you here. When did you come?"
"It must have been. You see that houseboat by the paddock there?--that's ours; sometimes some of us sleep in it, and sometimes none of us do--last night we three did--but we never started till quite late, and you weren't here then. Why ever didn't you let me know that you were coming? I'd never have gone to that silly old houseboat if I had."
"I didn't know that I was coming till--till I'd almost come."
"My dear child!--what do you mean? You must have made up your mind in a hurry, or--did your guardian make it up for you? Did Mr Emmett bring you?"
"He says he knows you--and your mother seems to know him very well."
"Says he knows me!--and mother knows him very well?--what Frazer can it be? I know no Mr Frazer."
"Perhaps he's one of Billy Frazer's lot--Miss Gilbert, do you know Billy Frazer? He's up at Magdalen; stroked their boats in the torpids; Bones they call him because--well, because he's bony. Perhaps your man's a relative of his."
"I don't know; I don't know any of his relations--his name is Eric."
"I daresay, if you put Miss Gilbert on the witness-stand, and bombard her long enough, you may get from her the information you require; though in my time it was not supposed to be the thing to cross-examine one's guest the moment one met her--however, we have also changed all that. I am going into the house to speak to your mother. I am very glad to see you, Miss Gilbert; I don't care how you came, or with whom; I am only sorry that I was not here to welcome you. I trust now you have come you'll keep on staying."
The old gentleman moved towards the house; with a figure as erect as if nothing had ever happened to bow his head or bend his back. His daughter looked after him with smiling eyes; then turned to the visitor with a question which took the girl rather aback.