"Yes," she said, encouraging Bob to speak, "I remember you perfectly, Mr. Otway; were we not fellow-prisoners at Sierre during the blizzard? And Mr. Fenton: why, you rode in the same sleigh the day we came here."
Fenton said that it was so, and apologised at the same time for certain frivolities upon the journey, particularly for the votive offering of snow hurled at the shrine of one Sir Gordon Snagg. When this had provoked the kindly lady to a smile, Bob took up the running.
"Everyone at the hotel is beastly sorry that you have left," he exclaimed, and then qualified it by saying: "That is, everyone who counts. The place seems quite different since you went."
"Oh, but I only left this morning, and you were paper-chasing, were you not?"
"Of course he was," cried Dick, "and proposing to Nellie Rider at the same time. That’s what he came to tell you, Mrs. Kennaird."
"While Bob wants to say that he is engaged to Marjory, and doesn’t know what to do about it."
"To do about it! Oh, my dear Mr. Fenton, what do you mean?"
They were both blushing very much by this time, and it was quite a charity to ask them to sit down. Lily herself took a seat upon the sofa, and, enjoying the situation immensely, encouraged them to go on.
"So I must congratulate you both; how good of you to take me into your confidence so soon. Why, it was only this morning, was it not?"
"In the woods below the Zaat," interposed Bob quickly; "I could show you the place."
"And I was just a quarter of a mile away. Was it not a coincidence, Mrs. Kennaird? We were both done for when we met."
She looked from one to the other, asking herself whether this was said in jest, or was indeed the very far from sentimental confession of a not unsentimental youth. And that was a riddle she could not read. It seemed to her that she was listening to boys from a public school, who had all the fine airs and the sporadic idiom of the city, but were at heart as simple as any Corydon from remote pastures.
"Really," she said, with just a suspicion of reproach in her tone. "Really, you must be serious, Mr. Fenton."
"I was never more serious in my life. We’re both engaged, and we’ve got three hundred and ninety pounds a year between us; that’s why we’ve come to you. You can tell us what we ought to do about it."