Lewis, for the first time in his life before Skelton’s face, burst out laughing. Skelton started with surprise. He scarcely knew the boy possessed a laugh so fresh, so merry, so boyish. Then, blushing violently, Lewis relapsed into silence, but those few words and the laugh had in some way shown him that the barrier between Skelton and himself was not so icy after all. Bulstrode teased the boy unceasingly about his bouquet, but Lewis was not to be turned from his liking by teasing. Soon after the bouquet episode he wrote a note in his best hand and carefully copied from the Complete Letter-writer, inviting Sylvia to take a sail in his boat. Sylvia accepted, and the next morning she was promptly on hand as the boat touched the wharf at Belfield. Lewis was delighted. It was his first taste of responsibility, and the idea that this charming creature should trust herself with him in his boat seemed to make a man of him at once. Skelton, glancing out of the library window, saw Lewis sitting in the stern by Sylvia, who was steering, while Service, the dog, sat between them, his paws on Lewis’s knee. Sylvia might have brought her whole battery of charms to bear on Skelton with less effect than by her simple kindness to Lewis. Skelton watched them as the boat sailed gaily past in the dazzling morning, and something like a blessing on her stirred his heart. He did not wish to be with them; on the contrary, he felt that he could more indulge his pleasure at a distance than if he was present, but he felt a profound and tender gratitude to Sylvia for her kindness to the boy. In the same way he silently but bitterly resented Mrs. Blair’s not having once brought or sent Hilary to Deerchase. The next time he met Sylvia--which was when riding along the road one afternoon--he stopped her, and she was surprised at the cordiality of his greeting. “My young friend Lewis Pryor seems to have the privilege of your friendship above all of us,” he said. Sylvia smiled, and felt like making a reply similar to Lewis’s when Skelton asked him a question of the same sort; but she merely said that Lewis was a very sweet boy, and the friendship of boys was apt to be sincere and disinterested. “And discerning,” added Skelton. “Boys are very astute. I think they lose some of their astuteness when they get to be men.” Young women, as a rule, did not interest Skelton; but he was drawn to study Sylvia, first by her kindness to Lewis, and then by the oddity of the discovery that the daughter of Mrs. Shapleigh could have so much mother-wit as Sylvia undoubtedly had. And then, talking about trifles as their horses stood in the sandy road, under the bare overhanging branches of the linden trees that lined the lane, the talk drifted to the Jockey Club. Skelton had just come from a meeting, and was evidently much interested in the subject.