“We were very happy that summer. I had never had anything quite like it. Mother and I went to lunches and teas—and I’d just begun to go to a few dances. But people didn’t ask us to stay in country houses. Three days’ visit to Mrs. Wiseman at Oxford was an event—till Cragsfoot came! I love that old house—and I shall never see it again!—Oh, well——! The boys were great friends; all three of us were. If anything, Waldo and I took sides against Arsenio, chaffing him about his little foreign ways, and so on, you know. Waldo called him Monkey; I called him ‘Don’—sometimes ‘Don Arsenio.’ I called Waldo just ‘Waldo’—and I should have called Arsenio just by his name, only that once, when we were alone, he asked me to, rather sentimentally—something about how his name would sound on my lips! So I wouldn’t—to tease him. I thought him rather ridiculous. I’ve always thought him ridiculous at times. Well, then, Nina Frost took to coming a good deal; Miss Fleming had pity on her, as she told me—her mother wasn’t long dead, you know, and she was all alone at Briarmount with a governess. Do you remember Fräulein Borasch? No? I believe you hardly remember Nina? You hardly ever came on excursions, and so on, with us. The boys told me all that sort of thing bored ‘old Julius.’ Nina rather broke up our trio; we fell into couples—you know how that happens? The path’s too narrow, or the boat’s too small, or you take sides at tennis. And so on. For the first time then the boys squabbled a little—for me. I enjoyed that—even though I didn’t think victory over little Nina anything to boast about. Well, then came that day.” Lucinda leant forward towards me, resting her arms on the table between us; she was more animated now; she spoke faster; a slight flush came on her cheeks; I likened it to an afterglow.