"Yes, certainly, she was under obligation for all his kindness, but his being in love with her--that is different."

But Alec Trenholme, like many people, could not see a fine point in the heat of discussion. Afterwards, on reflection he saw what she had meant, but now he only acted in the most unreasonable of ways.

"Well, I don't see it as you do," he said; and then, the picture of suppressed indignation, he took up the pail to go inside and dispose of it.

"I don't know how it can all be," said Sophia considering, "but I'm sure there's a great deal of good in her."

At this, further silence, even out of deference to her, seemed to him inadequate. "I don't pretend to know how it can be; how she got here, or what she has been doing here, dressed in silk finery, or what she may have been masquerading with matches in the old house over there for. All I know is, a girl who treated Bates as she did--"

"No, you don't know any of these things. You have only heard one side of the story. It is not fair to judge."

"She has ruined his life, done as good as killed him. Why should you take her part?"

"Because there are always two sides to everything. I don't know much of her story, but I have heard some of it, and it didn't sound like what you have said. As to her being in the Harmon house--" Sophia stopped.

"Do you mean to say," asked Alec, "that she has been living here all the time quite openly?"

"Yes--that is, she has given a false name, it seems, but, Mr.

Trenholme--"

"If she has lied about her name, depend upon it she has lied about everything else. I wouldn't want you to go within ten feet of her."

Although the fallacy of such argument as Alec's too often remains undetected when no stubborn fact arises to support justice, Sophia, with her knowledge of Eliza, could not fail to see the absurdity of it. Her mind was dismayed at the thought of what the girl had apparently done and concealed, but nothing could make her doubt that the Eliza she knew was different from the Sissy Cameron he was depicting. She did not doubt, either, that if anything would bring out all the worst in her and make her a thousand times more unkind to Bates, it would be the attack Alec Trenholme meditated. She decided that she ought herself to act as go-between. She remembered the scorn with which the patronage of a vulgar woman had that evening been discarded, and whether Eliza herself knew it or not, Sophia knew that this nicety of taste was due chiefly to her own influence. The subtle flattery of this pleaded with her now on the girl's behalf: and perceiving that Alec Trenholme was not amenable to reason, she, like a good woman, condescended to coax him for reason's sake. To a woman the art of managing men is much like the art of skating or swimming, however long it may lie in disuse, the trick, once learnt, is there to command. The milk, it seemed, must be taken down the cellar steps and poured into pans. Then a draught of milk off the ice was given to him. Then, it appeared, she must return to the pasture, and on their way she pointed out the flowers that she had planted, and let him break one that he admired.

When they reached the field Sophia proffered her request, which was, that he would leave his discovery in her hands for one day, for one day only, she pleaded. She added that he might come to see her the next afternoon, and she would tell him what explanation Eliza had to give, and in what mood she would meet her unfortunate guardian.

And Sophia's request was granted, granted with that whole-hearted allegiance and entire docility, with a tenderness of eye and lightsomeness of demeanour, that made her perceive that this young man had not been so obdurate as he appeared, and that her efforts to appease him had been out of proportion to what was required.

When he mounted his horse and rode off unmindful of the last pail of milk, for indeed his head was a little turned, Sophia was left standing by the pasture gate feeling unpleasantly conscious of her own handsome face and accomplished manner. If she felt amused that he should show himself so susceptible, she also felt ashamed, she hardly knew why. She remembered that in his eyes on a previous occasion which she had taken as a signal for alarm on her part, and wondered why she had not remembered it sooner. The thing was done now: she had petted and cajoled him, and she felt no doubt that masculine conceit would render him blind to her true motive. Henceforth he would suppose that she encouraged his fancy. Sophia, who liked to have all things her own way, felt disconcerted.

CHAPTER XI.

After tea Sophia took Blue and Red apart into their little bedroom. An old cotton blind was pulled down to shield the low window from pa.s.sers in the yard. The pane was open and the blind flapped. The room had little ornament and was unattractive.

"How could you write letters to that Mr. Harkness?" asked Sophia, trying to be patient.

"We didn't--exactly," said Blue, "but how did you know?"

"At least--we did," said Red, "but only notes. What have you heard, Sister Sophia? Has he"--anxiously--"written to papa?"

"Written to papa!" repeated Sophia in scorn. "What should he do that for?"

"I don't know," said Red, more dejected. "It's"--a little pause--"it's the sort of thing they do."

Sophia drew in her breath with an effort not to laugh, and managed to sigh instead. "I think you are the silliest girls of your age!"

"Well, I don't care," cried Blue, falling from bashfulness into a pout, and from a pout into tears. "I _don't_ care, so now. I think he was much nicer--much nicer than--" She sat upon a chair and kicked her little toes upon the ground. Red's dimpled face was flushing with ominous colour about the eyes.

"Really!" cried Sophia, and then she stopped, arrested by her own word.

How was it possible to present reality to eyes that looked out through such maze of ignorance and folly; it seemed easier to take up a sterner theme and comment upon the wickedness of disobedience and secrecy. Yet all the time her words missed the mark, because the true sin of these two pretty criminals was utter folly. Surely if the world, and their fragment of it, had been what they thought--the youth a hero, and their parents wrongly proud--their action had not been so wholly evil! But how could she trim all the thoughts of their silly heads into true proportion?

"I shall have to tell papa, you know; I couldn't take the responsibility of not telling him; but I won't speak till this press of work is over, because he is so tired, so you can be thinking how you will apologise to him."

Both Blue and Red were weeping now, and Sophia, feeling that she had made adequate impression, was glad to pause.

Red was the first to withdraw her handkerchief from dewy eyes. Her tone and att.i.tude seemed penitent, and Sophia looked at her encouragingly.

"Sister Sophia"--meekly--"does he say in his letter where he is, or--or"--the voice trembled--"if he's ever coming back?"

For such disconsolate affection Sophia felt that the letter referred to was perhaps the best medicine. "I will read you all that he says." And she read it slowly and distinctly, as one reads a lesson to children.

"Dear Eliza."

"He didn't think she was 'dear'" pouted Blue. "He told us she was 'real horrid.'"

Sophia read on from the crumpled sheet with merciless distinctness.

"Come to think of it, when I was coming off I threw all my bills and letters and things down in a heap in the back kitchen at Harmon's; and there were some letters there that those 'cute little Rexford girls wrote to me. They were real spoony on me, but I wasn't spoony on them one bit, Eliza, at least, not in my heart, which having been given to you, remained yours intact; but I sort of feel a qualm to think how their respected pa would jaw them if those _billets-doux_ were found and handed over. You can get in at the kitchen window quite easy by slipping the bolt with a knife; so as I know you have a hankering after the Rexfords, I give you this chance to crib those letters if you like. They are folded small because they had to be put in a nick in a tree, called by those amiable young ladies, a post-office."

"I'm real sorry I made you cry, Eliza. It's as well I didn't remain or I might have begun admiring of you again, which might have ended in breaking my vow to be--Only your ex-admirer, CYRIL, P. H----."

"Oh!" cried Blue, her tears dried by the fire of injury, "we never talked to him except when he talked to us--never!"

"There's a postscript," said Sophia, and then she read it.

"P.S. They used to c.o.c.k their eyes at me when they saw me over the fence. You had better tell them not to do it; I could not bear to think of them doing it to anyone else."

"Oh!" cried Red, "Oh--h! he never said to us that we c.o.c.ked our eyes. He said once to Blue that the way she curled her eyelashes at him was _real_ captivating."

Sophia rose delivering her final word: "Nothing could be more utterly vulgar than to flirt with a young man who is beneath you in station just because he happens to be thrown in your way."

CHAPTER XII.

When Sophia went to the hotel next morning, Eliza was not to be found.

She was not in, and no one knew where she was. Mr. Hutchins was inclined to grumble at her absence as an act of high-handed liberty, but Miss Rexford was not interested in his comments. She went back to her work at home, and felt in dread of the visit which she had arranged for Alec Trenholme to make that day. She began to be afraid that, having no information of importance with which to absorb his attention, he might to some extent make a fool of himself. Having seen incipient signs of this state of things, she took for granted it would grow.

When the expected caller did come, Sophia, because the servant could still do but little, was at work in the dairy, and she sent one of the children to ask him to come into the yard. The dairy was a pleasant place; it was a long low stone room, with two doors opening on the green yard. The roof of it was shaded by a tree planted for that purpose, and not many feet from its end wall the cool blue river ran. A queen could not have had a sweeter place for an audience chamber, albeit there was need of paint and repairs, and the wooden doorstep was almost worn away.

Sophia, churn-handle in hand, greeted her visitor without apology. She had expected that this churn-handle, the evidence of work to be done, would act as a check upon feeling, but she saw with little more than a glance that such check was superfluous; there was no sign of intoxication from the wine of graciousness which she had held to his lips when last she saw him. As he talked to her he stood on the short white clover outside the door's decaying lintel. He had a good deal to say about Bates, and more about Sissy Cameron, and Sophia found that she had a good deal to say in answer.

The churn was a hideous American patent, but light and very convenient.