strong man's contempt for other people's criticism; and there had
been something ignoble and fussy in his attitude regarding Lady
Underhill. She had tried to feel that the flaw in her idol did not
exist. And here was Freddie Rooke, a man who admired Derek with all
his hero-worshipping nature, pointing it out independently. She was
annoyed, and she expended her annoyance, as women will do, upon the
innocent bystander.

"Do you remember the time I turned the hose on you, Freddie," she
said, rising from the fender, "years ago, when we were children, when
you and that awful Mason boy--what was his name? Wally Mason--teased
me?" She looked at the unhappy Freddie with a hostile eye. It was his
blundering words that had spoiled everything. "I've forgotten what it
was all about, but I know that you and Wally infuriated me and I
turned the garden hose on you and soaked you both to the skin. Well,
all I want to point out is that, if you go on talking nonsense about
Derek and his mother and me, I shall ask Parker to bring me a jug of
water, and I shall empty it over you! Set him against me! You talk as
if love were a thing any third party could come along and turn off
with a tap! Do you suppose that, when two people love each other as
Derek and I do, that it can possibly matter in the least what anybody
else thinks or says, even if it is his mother? I haven't got a
mother, but suppose Uncle Chris came and warned me against Derek . . ."

Her anger suddenly left her as quickly as it had come. That was
always the way with Jill. One moment later she would be raging; the
next, something would tickle her sense of humor and restore her
instantly to cheerfulness. And the thought of dear, lazy old Uncle
Chris taking the trouble to warn anybody against anything except the
wrong brand of wine or an inferior make of cigar conjured up a