"A trap, Chicky! You to set a trap?"

"No, you, Ray. She fancied you might mean to surprise the boy and bully him."

"How could she think so?"

"I a.s.sured her that you'd never dream of any such thing. Of course I promised, as she wished me to do so, that you wouldn't turn up at the picnic. I reminded her how very particular you were, and how entirely you leave it to Abel to come round and take the first step."

"Be jolly careful what you say to him. He's a ma.s.s of prejudice, where I'm concerned, and doesn't even know I'm educating him."

"I'll keep off you," she promised. "In fact, I only intend to give him as good a day as I can. I'm not going to bother about you, Ray; I'm going to think of myself and do everything I can to get his friendship on my own account. If I can do that for a start, I shall be satisfied."

"And so shall I," declared Ernest. "Because it wouldn't stop at that.

If you succeed, then much may come of it. In my case, I can't lift his guarded friendship for me into enthusiasm. He a.s.sociates me with learning to read and other painful preliminaries to life. Moreover, I have tried to awaken his moral qualities and am regarded with the gravest suspicion in consequence. But you come to him freshly and won't try to teach him anything. Join him in his pleasure and add to it all you can. There is nothing that wins young creatures quicker than sharing their pleasures, if you can do so reasonably and are not removed so far from them by age that any attempt would be ridiculous. Fifteen and twenty-seven may quite well have a good deal in common still, if twenty-seven is not too proud to confess it."

CHAPTER XII

THE PICNIC

For a long day Estelle devoted herself whole-heartedly to winning the friendship of Abel Dinnett. Her chances of success were increased by an accident, though it appeared at first that the misadventure would ruin all. For when Estelle arrived at 'The Magnolias' in her pony carriage, Sabina proved to be sick and quite unequal to the proposed day in the air.

Abel declined to go without his mother, but, after considerable persuasion, allowed the prospect of pleasure to outweigh his distrust.

Estelle promised to let him drive, and that privilege in itself proved a temptation too great to resist. His mother's word finally convinced him, and he drove an elderly pony so considerately that his hostess praised him.

"I see you are kind to dumb things," she said. "I am glad of that, for they are very understanding and soon know who are their friends and who are not."

"If beasts treat me well," he answered, "then I treat them well. And if they treated me badly, then I'd treat them badly."

She did not argue about this; indeed, all that day her care was to amuse him and hear his opinions without boring him if she could avoid doing so.

He remained shy at first and quiet. From time to time she was in a fair way to break down his reserve; but he seemed to catch himself becoming more friendly and, once or twice, after laughing at something, he relapsed into long silence and looked at her from under his eyelids suspiciously when he thought she was not looking at him. Thus she won, only to lose what she had won, and when they reached the breezy cliffs of Eype, Estelle reckoned that she stood towards him pretty much as she stood at starting. But slowly, surely, inevitably, before such good temper and tact he thawed a little. They tethered the pony, gave it a nosebag and then spread their meal. Abel was quick and neat. She noticed that his hands were like his mother's--finely tapered, suggestive of art. But on that subject he seemed to have no ideas, and she found, after trying various themes, that he cared not in the least for music, or pictures, but certainly shared his father's interest in mechanics.

Abel talked of the Mill--self-consciously at first; yet when he found that Estelle ignored the past, and understood spinning, he forgot himself entirely for a time under the spell of the subject.

They compared notes, and she saw he was more familiar than she with detail. Then, while still forgetting his listener, Abel remembered himself and his talk of the Mill turned into a personal channel. There is no more confidential thing, by fits and starts, than a shy child; and just as Estelle felt the boy would never come any closer, or give her a chance to help him, suddenly he startled her with the most unexpected utterance.

"You mightn't know it," he said, "but by justice and right I should have the whole works for my very own when Mister Ironsyde died. Because he's my father, though I daresay he pretends to everybody he isn't."

"I'm very sure Mister Ironsyde doesn't feel anything but jolly kind and friendly to you, Abel. He doesn't pretend he isn't your father. Why should he? You know he's often offered to be friends, and he even forgave you for trying to burn down the Mill. Surely that was a pretty good sign he means to be friendly?"

"I don't want his friendship, because he's not good to mother. He served her very badly. I understand things a lot better than you might think."

"Well, don't spoil your lunch," she said. "We'll talk afterwards. Are you ready for another bottle of gingerbeer? I don't like this gingerbeer out of gla.s.s bottles. I like it out of stone bottles."

"So do I," he answered, instantly dropping his own wrongs. "But the gla.s.s bottles have gla.s.s marbles in them, which you can use; and so it's better to have them, because it doesn't matter so much about the taste after it's drunk."

She asked him concerning his work and he told her that he best liked history. She asked why, and he gave a curious reason.

"Because it tells you the truth, and you don't find good men always scoring and bad men always coming to grief. In history, good men come to grief sometimes and bad men score."

"But you can't always be sure what is good and what is bad," she argued.

"The people who write the histories don't worry you about that," he answered, "but just tell you what happened. And sometimes you are jolly glad when a beast gets murdered, or his throne is taken away from him; and sometimes you are sorry when a brave chap comes to grief, even though he may be bad."

"Some historians are not fair, though," she said. "Some happen to feel like you. They hate some people and some ideas, and always show them in an unfriendly light. If you write history, you must be tremendously fair and keep your own little whims out of it."

After their meal Estelle smoked a cigarette, much to Abel's interest.

"I never knew a girl could smoke," he said.

"Why not? Would you like one? I don't suppose a cigarette once in a way can hurt you."

"I've smoked thousands," he told her. "And a pipe, too, for that matter.

I smoked a cigar once. I found it and smoked it right through."

"Didn't it make you ill?"

"Yes--fearfully; but I hid till I was all right again."

He smoked a cigarette, and Estelle told him that his father was a great smoker and very fond of a pipe.

"But he wouldn't let you smoke, except now and again in holiday times--not yet. n.o.body ought to smoke till he's done growing."

"What about you, then?" asked Abel.

"I've done growing ages ago. I'm nearly twenty-eight."

He looked at her and his eyes clouded. He entered a phase of reserve.

Then she, guessing how to enchant him, suggested the next step.

"If you help me pack up now, we'll harness the pony and go down to West Haven for a bit. I want to see the old stores I've heard such a lot about. You must show them to me."

"Yes--part. I know every inch of them, but I can't show you my own secret den, though."

"Do. I should love to see it."

He shook his head.

"No good asking," he said. "That's my greatest secret. You can't expect me to tell you. Even mother doesn't know."

"I won't ask, then. I've got a den, too, for that matter--in fact, two.

One on North Hill and one in our garden."

"D'you know the lime-kiln on North Hill?"