"Robinette Loring," she said demurely, clasping her hands on her knee, an almost childlike delight in the new game dimpling the corners of her mouth from time to time.
"What is your age, madam?" Lavendar hesitated just for a moment before putting this question.
"I refuse to answer; you must guess."
"Contempt of Court--"
"Well, go on; I"m twenty-two and six weeks."
"Thank you, you are remarkably well preserved. I can hardly believe--those six-weeks! What nationality?"
"American, of course, or half and half; with an English mother and American ideas."
"Thank you. Where is your present place of residence?"
"Stoke Revel Manor House."
"What is the duration of the visit?"
"Fixed at a month, but may be shortened at any time for bad behaviour."
"Your purpose in coming to Stoke Revel?"
"A Sentimental Journey, in search of fond relations."
"Have you found these relations?"
"I"ve found them; but the fondness is still to seek."
"Have you left your family in America?"
"I have no one belonging to me in the world," she answered simply, and her bright face clouded suddenly.
There was a moment"s rather embarra.s.sed silence. "It"s getting to be a sad game"; she said. "It"s my turn now. I"ll be the cross-examiner, but not having had your legal training, I"ll tell you a few facts about this witness to begin with. He"s a lawyer; I know that already.
Your Christian name, sir?"
"Mark."
"Mark Lavendar. "Mark the perfect man." Where have I heard that; in Pope or in the Bible? Thank you; very good; your age is between thirty and thirty-five, with a strong probability that it is thirty-three. Am I right?"
"Approximately, madam."
"You are unmarried, for married men don"t play games like this; they are too sedate."
"You rea.s.sure me! Am I expected to acknowledge the truth of all your observations?"
"You have only to answer my questions, sir."
"I am unmarried, madam."
"Your nationality?"
"English of course. You don"t count a French grandmother, I suppose?"
Robinette clapped her hands. "Of course I do; it accounts for this game; it just makes all the difference.--Why have you come to Stoke Revel; couldn"t you help it?"
A twinkle pa.s.sed from the blue eyes to the brown ones.
"I am here on business connected with the estate."
"For how long?"
"An hour ago I thought all might be completed in a few days, but these affairs are sometimes unaccountably prolonged!" (Was there another twinkle? Robinette could hardly say.) They were half-way across the river now. She leaned over and looked at herself in the water for a moment.
Lavendar rested on his oars, and began to rub the palms of his hands, smiling a little to himself as he bent his head.
"Yours is an odd Christian name," he said. "I"ve never heard it before."
"Then you haven"t visited your National Gallery faithfully enough,"
said Mrs. Loring. "Robinetta is one of the Sir Joshua pictures there, you know, and it was a great favourite of my mother"s in her girlhood.
Indeed she saved up her pin-money for nearly two years that she might have a good copy of it made to hang in her bedroom where she could look at it night and morning."
"Then you were named after the picture?"
"I was named from the memory of it," said Robinette, trailing her hand through the clear water. "Mother took nothing to America with her but my father"s love (there was so much of that, it made up for all she left behind), so the picture was thousands of miles away when I was born. Mother told me that when I was first put into her arms she thought suddenly, as she saw my dark head, "Here is my own Robinetta, in place of the one I left behind," and fell asleep straight away, full of joy and content."
"And they shortened the name to Robinette?"
"I was christened properly enough," she answered. "It was the world that clipped my name"s little wings; the world refuses to take me seriously; I can"t think why, I"m sure; I never regarded _it_ as a joke."
"A joke," said Lavendar reflectively; "it"s a sort of grim one at times; and yet it"s funny too," he said, suddenly raising his eyes.
"Now that"s the odd thing I was thinking as I looked at you just now,"
Robinette said frankly. "You seem so deadly solemn until you look up and laugh--and then you _do_ laugh, you know. That"s the French grandmother again! It was nice in her to marry your grandfather! It helped a lot!"
He laughed then certainly, and so did she, and then pointed out to him that they were being slowly drifted out of their course, and that if he meant to get across to the landing-stage he must row a little harder.
"I have met American women casually;" he said, bending to his oars, "but I have never known one well."
"It"s rather too bad to disturb the tranquillity of your impressions,"
returned Mrs. Loring composedly.
Lavendar looked up with another twinkle. She seemed to provoke twinkles; he did not realize he had so many in stock.
"You mean American women are not painted in quite the right colours?"
"I suppose black _is_ a colour?"