"Why didn't you swim?" he asked lightly, being too intellectually busy clearing his pipe to see where the leading counsel was conducting him.
"Why, Uncle Jim, I wouldn't swim if John wasn't allowed too; I just couldn't. I'm going to bed--but, please, don't let Pat ride Dixy."
"I can attend to my stables, Miss Grey. John won't die of heat for want of a swim. You don't seem to concern yourself with those equally overbaked young scamps in Westways."
"Uncle Jim, you're just real mean to-night. Josiah told me yesterday that my cousin beat Tom McGregor because he said it was mean of you to stop the swimming. John said it was just, and Tom said he was a liar, and--oh, my! John licked him--wish I'd seen it."
This was news quite to his liking. He made no reply, lost in wonder over the ways of the mind male and female.
"You ought to be ashamed, you a girl, to want to see a fight. It's time you went to school. Isn't the rector on the porch? I thought I heard him."
Now, of late Leila had got to that stage of the game of thought-interchange when the young proudly use newly acquired word-counters. "I think, Uncle Jim, you're--you're irreverent."
The Squire shut the door on all outward show of mirth, and said gravely, "Isn't it pronounced irrelevant, my dear Miss Malaprop?"
"Yes--yes," said Leila. "That's a word John uses. It's just short for 'flying the track'!"
He was by habit averse to changing his decisions, and outside of Ann Penhallow's range of authority the Squire's discipline was undisputed and his decrees obeyed. He had been pleased and gaily amused for this half hour, but was of a mind to leave unchanged the penalties he had inflicted.
"Are you through, with this nonsense, Leila?" he said as he rose. "Is this an ingenious little game set up between you and John?" To his utter amazement she began to cry.
"By George!" he said, "don't cry," which is what a kind man always says when presented with the riddle of tears.
She drew a brown fist across her wet cheeks and said indignantly, "My cousin is a gentleman."
She turned to go by him. "No, dear, wait a moment." He held her arm.
"Please, let me go. When John first came, you said he was a prig--and if he would just do some boy-mischief and kick up his heels like a two-year-old with some fun in him--you said he was a sort of girl-boy--" There were for punctuation sobs and silences.