"Mr. how much?"

"Mr. Locke. You can look at him if you like."

She thought: "He won't. He won't. They never, never do."

But Mr. Ponsonby did. He looked at Mr. Locke, and he looked at Mary, and
he said, "By Gum!" He even read the bits about the baby and the empty
cabinet.

"You don't mean to say you _like_ this sort of thing?"

"I like it most awfully. Of course I don't mean as much as brook-jumping,
but almost as much."

And Mr. Ponsonby said, "Well--I must say--of _all_--you _are_--by Gum!"

He made it sound like the most delicious praise.

Mr. Ponsonby was taller and older than Mark. He was nineteen. She thought
he was the nicest looking person she had ever seen.

His face was the colour of thick white honey; his hair was very dark, and
he had long blue eyes and long black eyebrows like bars, drawn close down
on to the blue. His nose would have been hooky if it hadn't been so
straight, and his mouth was quiet and serious. When he talked to you his
mouth and eyes looked as if they liked it.

Mark came and said, "Minky, if you stodge like that you'll get all