"And mine also!" broke in the lady who wrote, enthusiastically.

"Cressida's mind is so beautiful in its intense naturalness, so delicate in texture. It is the instinctive shyness of a sensitive organism which----" She started, and turned round, for a loud, full, yet childish voice rose confidently above her words.

"Blazeth' goin' to kiss the little gurl, then she won't be flighted, but come along o' Blazeths."

And she did, hand in hand, admiringly, while he cracked his whip and cried, "_Ger'rup!_" to amuse her.

"And he can do old Angus awful well, too," whispered Eve to her companion, as they pa.s.sed out of the door. "We'll get him to do it by the burn when Mary isn't looking. Mary doesn't like it, you know, because her young man is a shepherd, too; but he really is quite a genteel young fellar, and kept company with the under 'rouse last year at the Forest--that's your place, isn't it?"

"It's a deal bigger than this," remarked the other. "And we have deers and grouses."

So the game of brag--which children play more navely than their elders--began, while the auth.o.r.ess was explaining at length how it came about that Cressida had consented to Blasius's methods of persuasion.

"I don't think you need distress yourself," remarked Mrs. Vane, with an odd little smile; "Blazes is really a remarkable boy; he invariably goes down straight to first principles, and that is a deadly method of argument--especially with our s.e.x."

"s.e.x!" echoed the auth.o.r.ess, scenting the foe. "I deny the right of man----"

"Lady George!" said Mrs. Vane, hastily, "perhaps some of these ladies might like to see the conservatories. I have on my boots."

Blanche gave her another glance of heartfelt grat.i.tude, and as she saw her bear off a large contingent, told herself that she was worth three of Alice Woodward, who was only equal to the bread and b.u.t.ter! And Paul was anything but bread and b.u.t.ter! The thought, as such vagrant ones have a trick of doing, begged for more consideration as she sate turning a polite ear and tongue to the task of amusing the auth.o.r.ess, who had remained behind; Mrs. Woodward meanwhile appearing deeply interested in a certain place the Hookers had had in Perthshire, where the gillies expected champagne and _pati de foie gras_ for their ball supper. And she was fast approaching that condition of mind in which the only thing which prevents our owning up that we are out of our depth is the conviction that we know quite as much of what we are talking about as the other party to the conversation, when the sudden reappearance of the garden contingent bearing two bundles wrapped in waterproofs supplied an all too efficient distraction.

For the waterproofs being set on the ground disclosed the coy Cressida and Blasius, both dripping, and inconceivably smeared with tar; but both to all appearance in the highest of spirits.

Poor Lady George stood up tragically.

"Yes!" replied Mrs. Vane, striving to be grave. "They are bad children--all bad children," she added, turning to the group of elder ones behind.

"Oh, but we wasn't there!" came in a chorus, led by Adam and Eve, "we wasn't, really. It's all his fault."

"Don't! Don't come near me, child!" cried the devoted mother, hastily retreating from the embrace of her only tie to life. "Cressida!

What--what have you been doing?"

"Oh mummie! it was bewful. First he washted me, and then I washted him, an' then we washted each other, didn't we, Blazes? and we said, Haud up--ye----"

"The child is dripping!" interrupted Lady George, hastily. "I will ring for nurse. Oh! Blasius, how could you think of such a thing?"

Mrs. Vane pointed slily to the furred white pelisse. "It is rather tempting," she said, aside; but Blanche was not to be mollified.

"And Mary? Where was Mary?"

"Mary's dancing the Highland fling with James in the boot hole,"

blabbed Eve, readily. "An' we wanted to dance too, but nursie was there, an' so we comed away."

"But where did you go? What were you doing? How came you not to see?

you two whom I can generally trust," persisted Lady George, growing tearful from vexation, yet feeling vaguely that it all arose from people bringing a piper with them when they came to call--a piper who disorganised the household and introduced Highland flings into the boot hole! "I insist, children, on hearing what you were all doing."

There was a dead silence, until for the first time Blazes lifted up his loud, mellow voice, as he stood disregarded by a chair smearing his tarry hands stolidly over its cover in a vain effort to amend matters before nurse appeared.

"They was flicking piggy wif a pin, and piggy was 'quealin' louder nor Blazeths."

And even Lady George--when the _char-a-banc_ had driven off, piper and mackintoshes and all, with Cressida kissing her still tarry hands to a struggling figure in Mary's arms at the nursery window--was forced to admit that Blazes generally went straight to the point; and that after all it had helped to pa.s.s the time. And as for Mary, she declared that her ladyship might say what she liked about 'orseplay, an' lendin'

'erself to savage an' indignified dances in a boot 'ole, but 'ighland flings wasn't in it--for a stetch in yer side an' no 'airpins to speak of--with Master Blazes when you 'ad to 'old 'im and 'e didn't meant to be 'eld.

CHAPTER XVI.

For the next few days after the visit to old Peggy, which convinced her that some secret lay in the old woman's keeping, Mrs. Vane refrained from any attempt to interfere with Providence. To begin with, she felt vaguely that the Scotch marriage laws were dangerous, and the very fact that she knew enough of Paul to be sure that this was not likely to be a mere vulgar entanglement, made her hesitate before her own suspicions. On the other hand, this possibility of a new string to her bow inclined her to slack off the other; the more so because here again she was beginning to be afraid of her own weapon.

She had always recognised that, but for her interference, Paul would have held to that discretion which is the better part of valour, have seen no more of Marjory, and forgotten her; also, that the girl herself had been quite as ready to dismiss this strange, if alluring, figure from her thoughts, as belonging to a society--nay! to a world--in which she had no part. But now? Mrs. Vane, as she watched the easy familiarity which had of necessity recommenced between them, as she noted the girl's quick, healthy response to the thousand and one new thoughts and ways of this new life, could not help wondering if the awakening to new pleasures might not rouse into action a new set of emotions and instincts. For Marjory, as for Paul, there was also danger; to her from the unfamiliarity, to him from the very familiarity of the environment, which threw him back on past experience, and rendered it well-nigh impossible for him to forget his own nature, and dream himself in Arcadia. And then Dr. Kennedy's appearance had complicated matters for Mrs. Vane, who, kindly to all, had a weak spot in her heart for the friend of her earliest youth. It did not take long for her sharp eyes to pierce through his pretence of mere guardianship, and it gave her quite a pang to think of giving him one. Yet here she comforted herself by the palpable jealousy which Marjory showed towards those youthful days; a jealousy she did not scruple to stimulate, for Mrs. Vane, with all her _finesse_, occasionally made a mistake, and in the present instance did not realise that in thus, as it were, emphasising a hitherto unknown side of Dr. Kennedy's life she was adding to the strangeness of the environment in which Marjory found herself; and at the same time suggesting that it was no new thing to the one person to whose opinion she was inclined to defer. So that, instead of helping her old friend by the time-honoured device of exciting jealousy as a prelude to love, Mrs. Vane, in reality, made it easier for the girl to drift from her moorings.

"You are very kind to your ward," said the little lady one day, feeling impelled to give comfort as she noticed Dr. Kennedy's eyes following Marjory rather wistfully. "But virtue has its own reward. Do not pretend you don't understand, _Monsieur le Docteur!_ for you do.

And I will give you my opinion--when she has seen a little more of the world she will see what _it_ has seen already--that there are not many men in it like Dr. Tom Kennedy."

"She will see exactly what she chooses to see, _Madame!_" he replied, with one of his little foreign bows, which, to Marjory, seemed to reveal him in a new and worldly light.

"Exactly," retorted the little lady; "and being of the Truth will choose the Truth." And then suddenly her mood changed, and she laid her hand close to his on the table as if to attract his attention to her quick emotion. "Ah, _mon ami_, I envy you! you can afford to wait for Paradise, and I have had mine. At least, I feel as if I had eaten my apple and been turned out into the cold, for there hasn't been much happiness in my life."

He looked at her with 'grave pity, noting with the eye of one accustomed to the work the thousand and one little signs of wear and tear in the clever, mobile face.

"You have put plenty into other people's lives, anyhow," he said, in kindly, if cold, comfort; and his words were true. With all her faults Mrs. Vane had given more to the world than she had ever taken from it.

Marjory, watching the little scene from afar, felt something of this, as she told herself it was quite natural that Tom should enjoy the companionship of his old friend. Who, in fact, would not enjoy talking to so brilliant and charming a woman? at least, in this new world, which could not somehow be cleft in two by a straight line dividing right from wrong, darkness from light.

Yet, though she acknowledged this, she was as far as ever from understanding it, and as ready as ever to disdain anything which bordered on sentiment; on that unknown ground of Love or Pa.s.sion.

Dr. Kennedy, repeating to her his part of _jeune premier_ in the little play which was to precede some tableaux, realised her lack of change in this respect with mingled gratification and regret.

"I must keep my own counsel," he recited, in the even yet jerky tone sacred to the learning of parts, "em--and not let her suspect the deep attachment she has inspired--inspired--inspired. Now, don't tell me, please; I know what comes next. Yes! I do, Mademoiselle! In nine cases out of ten a proposal! So there! Well, where were we? Ah! 'But, soft'

(depends greatly on the stage floor, my dear sir). 'But, soft! she comes!' Go on, Marjory. 'Enter Blanche--she comes,' is your cue."

"'Tis he! Henri!' Oh! Tom, do let us skip all that bosh!"

Dr. Kennedy put down the hazel root he was whittling into a shepherd's crook and looked at her in feigned surprise. "Bosh! Why, I intend to work this up until I draw tears from every eye."

"Not from mine, Tom," smiled Marjory; "that sort of thing always makes me laugh."

They were lounging under the beech tree which grew close to the burn at the bottom of the garden, and the dappled sunshine and shade from the green canopy overhead made the green draperies outlining the fine curves of Marjory's slender figure seem like a dress of leaves.

Leaning forward on the gra.s.s, her chin resting on her hands, her curly head thrown back half-defiantly to look him in the face, she reminded Dr. Kennedy of Rosalind; yet it was of another heroine that he spoke.

"Poor Juliet! I suppose she ought not to have survived to the nineteenth century!"

Marjory's eyebrows puckered themselves in doubt. "I don't mean that; perhaps I don't know what I mean; but Juliet loved Romeo, and these"--she nodded at the little book between her elbows in careless contempt--"they--they--Tom! you must allow there is too much of--of that sort of thing."

He went on whittling for a moment; it was the first time he had ever touched on the subject with Marjory, and he felt at once curious and constrained.

"I am afraid that sort of thing--as you call it--will not reduce itself to please you; it is part, and perhaps a necessary part, of life," he said shortly.