IV

"You look worried," said Will Lockhart; "the place doesn't suit you. I told you it wouldn't when we hid behind Charity. Is there anything really the matter?" his voice took a softer tone, "anything I could help you to set straight?"

They were sitting by the fire in Lady Maud's little sitting-room, whither they had retired from the bustle inseparable from tea in the drawing-room when bad weather keeps even the sportsmen indoors. He said the truth; she looked worn and f.a.gged, and her pose as she leant back in her easy-chair was one of listless fatigue.

"Nonsense! There is nothing the matter; nothing more than the usual worries of a hostess in tiresome weather. To begin with, it has prevented your coming here till you can only spare us a miserable day on your way to rejoin the yacht. Then Louisa, after wasting a fine week over the Portree gathering, was detained there ten days by storm.

Finally, just as she started for the Highlands one at Inverness _pour pa.s.ser le temps_, it cleared up. Since then it has been what is called unsettled; most of all for poor Eustace, who never knows for two days together what is going to happen. Then Lady Liddell caught cold at a picnic, and Cynthia Strong, whom I invited for the professor,--a Girtonite you know, does mathematics and all that,--seems uncertain whether she doesn't prefer Arthur Weeks, a man who hasn't a penny and can't do a sum beyond the compound addition of his bills."

"A catalogue of evils, certainly."

"That isn't all. The professor, who would make her an excellent husband, being in that set and with a charming house too at Oxford, does nothing but go over to Eval House to see Miss Macdonald--you knew her once, I think--well, he looks on her as an encyclopaedia of discredited beliefs, a unique copy of an ancient work on folk-lore which the lucky finder is bound to purchase. Besides, she has a valuable collection--"

"When I knew her," broke in Will Lockhart hotly, "she did not need any advent.i.tious attractions; she was simply the loveliest--"

Lady Maud's languid hands met in faint applause.

"I thought that would draw you. So she was the _mauvais quart d'heure_. I am not really laughing, so don't be angry; only from the way she spoke of you--"

"Did she speak of me?"

"How can you ask? And women never speak of the men who have loved them in the same tone of voice they use for the dense, indiscriminating mult.i.tude who didn't."

"Then Miss Macdonald's voice must change pretty often."

"Ah! was that it? you were jealous."

"Nothing so romantic. We quarrelled over some bread and b.u.t.ter--we were very young. Then circ.u.mstances favoured absence, so forgetfulness came, or at least indifference, absolute indifference." He paused for a moment. "And so the professor is there constantly, is he?"

Lady Maud smiled behind the fan with which she screened her face from the fire.

"He is there now, I expect. He went dune-hunting in the south this morning, and was to stop there for the night. Thought he might be late; besides, he must consult the encyclopaedia."

Will Lockhart frowned. "This has made us drift from the point. Your husband, does he like the place?"

"Apparently. And the servants are satisfied too, which is a great gain. They get all their work done for them by the natives. It is an immense relief to shift one's responsibilities to other folks'

shoulders, isn't it?"

He looked at her sharply. "There _is_ something the matter. Is it only other people's love-affairs? And what, for instance, of that handsome boy downstairs who does Sir Walter Raleigh's cloak for your Majesty's feet all day long?"

Lady Maud leant forward eagerly, her whole face alight. "You mean Rick. Do you remember once, when you were very angry with me, saying I was enough to ruin any man in a week? It wasn't true, Big Bear. I couldn't spoil Rick Halmar."

"Have you tried and failed?" he asked cynically.

She shook her head and a soft half-smiling, half-tearful look came to her pretty eyes.

"You don't know him, and I can't explain. Yet I tell you that I couldn't spoil one of that dear lad's happy days unless--" she broke off suddenly, raising her eyes to the image on the mantelshelf. "He carved that devil up there," she went on with the smile gaining on the tears. "The professor said it was a savage conception of fate, but it isn't. It is Rick Halmar's conception of my fate, and that--well, that hasn't much of the devil in it. Come! it is time I was returning to my duties as hostess."

"Time for me to be going also," he replied, looking at his watch. "I have seven miles before me."

"Not if you make use of the Eval ferryboat." She looked at him mischievously.

"I do not intend to make use of it, even to oblige you, Lady Maud. I might meet the professor, and then there would be a petty-a.s.sault case."

"Of course! How tiresome you are! I counted on your being here a week at least, and people can unmake ever so many quarrels in seven days."

"Or make them. But the elements are too strong for you, Lady Maud. I told you so."

Rick Halmar came up as, still smiling over the joke, they entered the drawing-room.

"I'm so glad. I was afraid you might not come before I left, and I must go soon."

"Then you can pilot Mr. Lockhart a little way. He has to walk over to Carbost Bay."

"A good bit of the way, you mean," replied Rick, turning his bright face towards Will Lockhart's. "Our ferry is far the shortest; in fact, it's the only road, for the upper-end bridge gave way in the flood last night and the stream isn't fordable yet!"

Lady Maud's eyebrows went up archly.

"What a nuisance the elements are at times; aren't they, Mr.

Lockhart?"

"I should think so," a.s.sented Rick cheerfully. "Why, we have been trying to get to Eilean-a-fa-ash these three weeks--haven't we, Lady Maud?--without catching a fine day and a suitable tide on the hop together. The sea ford might have done last spring, but it was too rough for the ladies to return by boat, or else too wet. But the first fine day. That is it, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mr. Halmar!" cried Cynthia Strong from the window seat where Captain Weeks was blissfully useful over a skein of wool. "And please order the fine day soon, for I have to go by the next _Clansman_."

"Then I shall go too," murmured the captain.

"I suppose the birds will be getting rather wild by that time,"

remarked the young lady tartly. Theoretically, she felt bound to despise her admirer and his occupations; practically, his murmurs made her heart beat.

"Wild! Why, they lie like stones on this coast. Something to do with the Gulf Stream, I'm told, though I know nothing myself about these scientific things. But you can kick 'em up and shoot 'em like chickens on the last day of the season."

"And when is that?"

Captain Weeks laughed,--the true man's laugh of surprised tolerance.

"I thought you knew everything, Miss Strong; but I don't suppose they think it worth while to teach girls. It's the 10th of December for grouse, but partridges go on till the beginning of February, and there's no real close time for--" His voice fell to the confidential tone. Eustace Gordon had meanwhile joined the trio at the door.

"Yes! let it be soon, please; for I may be going also. I've just heard, Maud, from Louisa, and the last idea is that I am to take the yacht, which she is sending here, round to Cowes, and that we are to start at once for less uncertain climes. The Mediterranean, most likely."

"That is very--unexpected. But all my friends are flying south, like the swallows."

"And I have to go furthest of all," said Rick ruefully. "I'm booked for the Pacific Station, as sure as fate."

"Then you must send me home a real Numbo Jumbo if you come across one," she replied, smiling up into his eager boyish face with a confidence absolutely free from all alloy.

"Won't I! and some of those jolly sh.e.l.ls too; all the pretty things I can pick up."

"Thank you, Rick; I like pretty things."