‘It is funny how a caricature impresses a likeness on you far quicker and more lastingly than a good portrait. Do you remember you once did one of me when we were little and I cried?’ ‘I’d forgotten that.’ ‘Do you see everybody with their imperfections exaggerated--always?’ ‘Only with one eye. That’s my defence. The other has so frequently to be shut--or wounded. But there’s a great deal of æsthetic pleasure to be had from the contemplation of monsters.’ ‘I suppose the temptation is to shut the normal one more and more until finally it ceases to work; especially if the other one has a greater facility. And it has, hasn’t it, Roddy?’ ‘Perhaps. You must stay by me and counteract it.’ ‘Which is it?’ she looked at him laughing. He shut one eye. ‘I shut it entirely to look at you,’ he said. Afterwards when she played again, a single with Martin, he lay on the bank, indolent after his burst of energy, watching her long after the others had lost interest and gone indoors. Passing him once, she had closed one eye and looked at him inquiringly; and all his face had broken up in warm delighted twinklings. He did welcome the most trivial jokes from her; and they were always trivial, and not nearly frequent enough. Next time had been the time of Julian’s extremely bad temper. He had played tennis with malice and vicious cuts and nasty exclamations of triumph. Over Roddy’s face slid down the mask of deadly obstinacy which was his anger. He came from the game and flung himself on the bank without a word, while Julian remained on the court, peevishly patting balls about. ‘He annoys me,’ said Roddy after a bit, watching him under heavy lids. Presently he took a piece of paper from his pocket and worked in silence. ‘Roddy, may I see it?’ He made no reply; but after a few more minutes he flung it over to her. It was a terrible success (Julian had always been the most successful subject); and it was devilish as well as funny. ‘Oh, Roddy!’ She began to giggle. ‘Sh! Lookout! He’s coming back.’ He snatched the paper from her and crushed it up. ‘Oh, let me keep it.’ ‘Well, don’t let him see it. He hates it.’ He flung it hurriedly into her lap as Julian came up; and as she stuffed it into her pocket with studied carelessness, his lips suddenly relinquished the last of his obstinacy, and he flashed her a look suffused with laughter and the sense of shared guilt. Surely he had never looked at anyone before with such irresistible intimacy and appeal. The less assured face of the child Roddy peered for a moment in that look; but the dark and laughing fascination was new and belonged to the young man; and she melted inwardly at the remembrance of it. Then there had been the time Martin and Roddy had come to tea--so exciting a little time that she still dwelt on it with beating heart.