Jill smiled happily across the table at him. She could hardly believe that this old friend with whom she had gone through the perils of the night and with whom she was now about to feast was the sinister figure that had cast a shadow on her childhood. He looked positively incapable of pulling a little girl’s hair—as no doubt he was.
“You always were greedy,” she commented. “Just before I turned the hose on you, I remember you had made yourself thoroughly disliked by pocketing a piece of my birthday-cake.”
“Do you remember that?” His eyes lit up and he smiled back at her. He had an ingratiating smile. His mouth was rather wide, and it seemed to stretch right across his face. He reminded Jill more than ever of a big, friendly dog. “I can feel it now,—all squashy in my pocket, inextricably mingled with a catapult, a couple of marbles, a box of matches, and some string. I was quite the human general store in those days. Which reminds me that we have been some time settling down to an exchange of our childhood reminiscences, haven’t we?”
“I’ve been trying to realise that you are Wally Mason. You have altered so.”
“For the better?”
“Very much for the better! You were a horrid little brute. You used to terrify me. I never knew when you were going to bound out at me from behind a tree or something. I remember your chasing me for miles, shrieking at the top of your voice!”
“Sheer embarrassment! I told you just now how I used to worship you. If I shrieked a little, it was merely because I was shy. I did it to hide my devotion.”
“You certainly succeeded. I never even suspected it.”
Wally sighed.
“How like life! I never told my love, but let concealment like a worm i’ the bud —”
“Talking of worms, you once put one down my back!”
“No, no,” said Wally in a shocked voice. “Not that! I was boisterous, perhaps, but surely always the gentleman.”
“You did! In the shrubbery. There had been a thunderstorm and —”
“I remember the incident now. A mere misunderstanding. I had done with the worm, and thought you might be glad to have it.”
“You were always doing things like that. Once you held me over the pond and threatened to drop me into the water—in the winter! Just before Christmas. It was a particularly mean thing to do, because I couldn’t even kick your shins for fear you would let me fall. Luckily Uncle Chris came up and made you stop.”
“You considered that a fortunate occurrence, did you?” said Wally. “Well, perhaps from your point of view it may have been. I saw the thing from a different angle. Your uncle had a whangee with him, and the episode remains photographically lined on the tablets of my mind when a yesterday has faded from its page. My friends sometimes wonder what I mean when I say that my old wound troubles me in frosty weather. By the way, how is your uncle?”
“Oh, he’s very well. Just as lazy as ever. He’s away at present, down at Brighton.”
“He didn’t strike me as lazy,” said Wally thoughtfully. “Dynamic would express it better. But perhaps I happened to encounter him in a moment of energy.”
“He doesn’t look a day older than he did then.”
“I’m afraid I don’t recall his appearance very distinctly. On the only occasion on which we ever really foregathered—hobnobbed, so to speak—he was behind me most of the time. Ah!” The waiter had returned with a loaded tray. “The food! Forgive me if I seem a little distrait for a moment or two. There is man’s work before me!”
“And later on, I suppose, you would like a chop or something to take away in your pocket?”
“I will think it over. Possibly a little soup. My needs are very simple these days.”
Jill watched him with a growing sense of satisfaction. There was something boyishly engaging about this man. She felt at home with him. He affected her in much the same way as did Freddie Rooke. He was a definite addition to the things that went to make her happy.