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Page 19
"I'm ever so sorry to hear it," Sir Henry declared sympathetically.
"You mustn't worry too much, though, dear. Where's Helen?"
"She is in the gun room with a caller."
"With a caller?" Nora exclaimed. "Is it any one from the Depot?
I must go and see."
"You needn't trouble," her stepmother replied. "Here they are,
coming in."
The door on the opposite side of the room was suddenly opened, and
Hamar Lessingham and Helen entered together. Lessingham was
entirely at his ease,--their conversation, indeed, seemed almost
engrossing. He came at once across the room on realising Sir
Henry's presence.
"This is Mr. Hamar Lessingham--my husband," Philippa said. "Mr.
Lessingham was at college with Dick, Henry, so of course Helen and
he have been indulging in all sorts of reminiscences."
The two men shook hands.
"I found time also to examine your Leech prints," Lessingham remarked.
"You have some very admirable examples."
"Quite a hobby of mine in my younger days," Sir Henry admitted.
"One or two of them are very good, I believe. Are you staying in
these parts long, Mr. Lessingham?"
"Perhaps for a week or two," was the somewhat indifferent reply.
"I am told that this is the most wonderful air in the world, so I
have come down here to pull up again after a slight illness."
"A dreary spot just now," Sir Henry observed, "but the air's all
right. Are you a sea-fisherman, by any chance, Mr. Lessingham?"
"I have done a little of it," the visitor confessed. Sir Henry's
face lit up. He drew from his pocket a small, brown paper parcel.
"I don't mind telling you," he confided as he cut the string, "that
I don't think there's another sport like it in the world. I have
tried most of them, too. When I was a boy I was all for shooting,
perhaps because I could never get enough. Then I had a season or
two at Melton, though I was never much of a horseman. But for real,
unadulterated excitement, for sport that licks everything else into
a cocked hat, give me a strong sea rod, a couple of traces, just
enough sea to keep on the bottom all the time, and the codling
biting. Look here, did you ever see a mackerel spinner like that?"
he added, drawing one out of the parcel which he had untied. "Look
at it, all of you."
Lessingham took it gingerly in his fingers. Philippa, a little
ostentatiously, turned her back upon the two men and took up a
newspaper.
"Lady Cranston does not sympathize with my interest in any sort of
sport just now," Sir Henry explained good-humouredly. "All the
same I argue that one must keep one's mind occupied somehow or
other."
"Quite right, Dad!" Nora agreed. "We must carry on, as the Colonel
says. All the same, I did hope you'd come down in a new naval
uniform, with lots of gold braid on your sleeve. I think they might
have made you an admiral, Daddy, you'd look so nice on the bridge."
"I am afraid," her father replied, with his eyes glued upon the
spinner which Lessingham was holding, "that that is a consideration
which didn't seem to weigh with them much. Look at the glitter of
it," he went on, taking up another of the spinners. "You see, it's
got a double swivel, and they guarantee six hundred revolutions a
minute."
"I must plead ignorance," Lessingham regretted, "of everything
connected with mackerel spinning."
"It's fine sport for a change," Sir Henry declared. "The only thing
is that if you strike a shoal one gets tired of hauling the beggars
in. By-the-by, has Jimmy been up for me, Philippa? Have you heard
whether there are any mackerel in?"
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