The Annam Jewel by Patricia Wentworth

your dear father should be called away on business at this juncture.”
    They talked to Peter next day after the cook had given notice. Sylvia talked to him, and Miss Coverdale talked to him. Peter stood with his back to the fireplace and blushed. He also shuffled continuously from one foot to another and fiddled with a bit of string.
    About half-way through the proceedings Sylvia stamped her foot and snatched the string. Peter made not the slightest attempt to retain it, but immediately produced another piece from his waistcoat pocket and began to fiddle with that. Sylvia got up and ran out of the room, banging the door behind her.
    Romance, it will be seen, was rather under a cloud.
    On Tuesday Peter took the hall clock to pieces. He said he had noticed that it gained three minutes every day, so he concluded that it required regulating. He said he had often taken clocks to pieces. The trouble was that, owing to some peculiarity of this particular clock, it remained in pieces. Peter’s efforts to put it together again being quite unsuccessful. Miss Coverdale became terribly agitated, but Sylvia, still on the cold side of Romance, contented herself with observing that the nearest reliable watchmaker lived five miles away. Peter immediately swept the fragments of the clock into a very dirty cotton bandanna, and vanished from the scene. He was away about four hours, returning very late for dinner. The clock was going. He explained that he had put it together himself. Wilkins, it appeared, was a jolly good sort. Wilkins had given him some jolly good tips, but he had put the clock together himself.
    On Wednesday Peter was discovered taking pot shots at Sylvia’s pet robin with an air-gun. The robin sat on the topmost branch of a tree, and regarded Peter with a good deal of interest. Sylvia behaved rather like Penelope. She rushed at Peter, snatched away the gun, and boxed his ears.
    On Thursday Cyril Marling arrived. He was a slim young man with a long nose and a high brow. His other features were negligible. He wore his hair about twelve inches long and brushed smoothly back from the brow to the nape of the neck.
    â€œI thought he was coming for the week-end,” said Miss Coverdale fretfully.
    â€œWell, darling, so he is,” said Sylvia.
    â€œYour father won’t like it.”
    â€œMy father isn’t here, Jane Ann. Do stop fussing.”
    Peter did not like it either. He loathed Cyril Marling at sight, and after Cyril and Sylvia had spent nearly the whole of Friday together on the river, he loathed Cyril a good deal more.
    â€œWhat on earth were you doing all day?” he said gloomily to Sylvia after dinner.
    They were having coffee outside on the terrace. Cyril Marling had just risen to get the sugar, and Peter had taken his chair.
    â€œWhat on earth were you doing?”
    Sylvia in the moonlight made a very pretty picture. She gazed ecstatically at Peter, and said:
    â€œWe had a lovely time. Cyril read poetry to me.”
    â€œPoetry!” said Peter, in disgusted tones.
    â€œYes, poetry. Lovely, lovely verses written specially for me.”
    â€œGood lord! You don’t mean to say he writes it?”
    â€œOf course he does; he’s a poet.”
    â€œHow rotten!”
    There was real conviction in Peter’s tones. He seemed to be oblivious of the fact that Cyril Marling had returned. He continued to sprawl in the chair which he had annexed.
    Sylvia laughed.
    â€œOh, Peter, how rude! I love poetry. Cyril, why on earth don’t you find yourself a chair?”
    â€œ That’s my chair,” said Cyril rather peevishly.
    Peter merely hunched himself and said nothing. He looked very large and heavy. After a moment’s indecision Cyril sat down on Sylvia’s other side.
    â€œPoetry is rotten stuff,” said Peter. “It’s dead easy, too. I know a chap at school who does it. He’s a bit of a rotter, no good at games, and all that sort of thing.