They reached the “block,” that strip of Collins Street which forms the fashionable promenade. Here the road was full of cabs and carriages, and there was a great crowd on the pavement. The girls progressed but slowly. People were meeting their friends, shopping, changing books at the library, eating ices at the confectioner’s, fruit at the big fruit-shop round the corner. There were a large number of high-collared young dudes, some Trinity and Ormond men with coloured hatbands, ladies with little parcels dangling from their wrists, and countless schoolgirls like themselves. Tilly grew momentarily livelier; her big eyes pounced, hawk-like, on every face she met, and her words to Laura became more disjointed than before. Finally, her efforts were crowned with success: she managed, by dint of glance and smile combined, to unhook a youth of her acquaintance from a group at a doorway, and to attach him to herself.
In high good humour now that her aim was accomplished, she set about the real business of the morning—that of promenading up and down. She had no longer even a feigned interest left for Laura, and the latter walked beside the couple a lame and unnecessary third. Though she kept a keen watch for Bob, she could not discover him, and her time was spent for the most part in dodging people, and in catching up with her companions; for it was difficult to walk three abreast in the crowd.
Then she saw him—and with what an unpleasant shock. If only Tilly did not see him, too!
But no such luck was hers. “Look out, there’s Bob,” nudged Tilly almost at once.
Alas! there was no question of his waiting longingly for her to appear. He was walking with two ladies, and laughing and talking. He raised his hat to his cousin and her friend, but did not disengage himself, and passing them by disappeared in the throng.
Behind her hand Tilly buzzed: “One of those Woodwards is awfully sweet on him. I bet he can’t get loose.”
This was a drop of comfort. But as, at the next encounter, he still did not offer to join them—could it, indeed, be expected that he would prefer her company to that of the pretty, grown-up girls he was with?—as he again sidled past, Tilly, who had given him one of her most vivacious sparkles, turned and shot a glance at Laura’s face.
“For pity’s sake, look a little more amiable, or he won’t come at all.”
Laura felt more like crying; her sunshine was intercepted, her good spirits were quenched; had she had her will, she would have turned tail and gone straight back to school. She had not wanted Bob, had never asked him to be “gone” on her, and if she had now to fish for him, into the bargain … However there was no help for it; the thing had to be gone through with; and, since Tilly seemed disposed to lay the blame of his lukewarmness at her door, Laura glued her mouth, the next time Bob hove in sight, into a feeble smile.
Soon afterwards he came up to them. His cousin had an arch greeting in readiness.
“Well, you’ve been doing a pretty mash, you have!” she cried, and jogged him with her elbow. “No wonder you’d no eyes for poor us. What price Miss Woodward’s gloves this morning!”—at which Bob laughed, looked sly, and tapped his breast pocket.
It was time to be moving homewards. Tilly and her beau led the way. “For we know you two would rather be alone. Now, Bob, not too many sheep’s-eyes, please!”
Bob smiled, and let fly a wicked glance at Laura from under his dark lashes. Dropping behind, they began to mount the hill. Now was the moment, felt Laura, to say something very witty, or pert, or clever; and a little pulse in her throat beat hard, as she furiously racked her brains. Oh, for just a morsel of Tilly’s loose-tonguedness! One after the other she considered and dismissed: the pleasant coolness of the morning, the crowded condition of the street, even the fact of the next day being Sunday—ears and cheeks on fire, meanwhile, at her own slow-wittedness. And Bob smiled. She almost hated him for that smile. It was so assured, and withal so disturbing. Seen close at hand his teeth were whiter, his eyes browner than she had believed. His upper lip, too, was quite dark; and he fingered it incessantly, as he waited for her to make the onslaught.
But he waited in vain; and when they had walked a whole street-block in this mute fashion, it was he who broke the silence.
“Ripping girls, those Woodwards,” he said, and seemed to be remembering their charms.
“Yes, they looked very nice,” said Laura in a small voice, and was extremely conscious of her own thirteen years.
“Simply stunning! Though May’s so slender—May’s the pretty one—and has such a jolly figure … I believe I could span her waist with my two hands … her service is just A1—at tennis I mean.”
“Is it really?” said Laura wanly, and felt unutterably depressed at the turn the conversation was taking. Her own waist was coarse, her knowledge of tennis of the slightest.
“Ra-ther! Overhand, with a cut on it—she plays with a 14-oz. racquet. And she has a back drive, too, by Jove, that—you play, of course?”
“Oh, yes.” Laura spoke up manfully; but prayed that he would not press his inquiries further. At this juncture his attention was diverted by the passing of a fine tandem; and as soon as he brought it back to her again, she said: “You’re at Trinity, aren’t you?”—which was finesse; for she knew he wasn’t.
“Well, yes … all but,” answered Bob well pleased. “I start in
