Doctor Rugvie had opened an easy way of approach for me to ask him what
I would, but that question put by Mr. Ewart in regard to the child,
whether it was a boy or a girl, seemed to block the way, for a time at
least, impassably. If I were to make inquiry now of the Doctor
concerning my identity and ask the name of my father, naturally he
would infer, after Mr. Ewart's remark, that the question of the
property was my impelling motive. My reason told me the time was ripe
to settle this personal question, but something--was it intuition? I
believe in that, if only we would follow its lead and leave reason to
lag in chains far behind it--seemed to paralyze my power of will in
making any move to ascertain my paternal parentage. And yet I had
dared to respond to that demand in Jamie's advertisement "of good
parentage"!
"Well, I am myself," I thought, half defiantly, "and after all, it's
not what those who are dead and gone stood for that counts. It's what
I stand for; and what I am rests with my will to make. They 'll have
to accept me for what I am."
I was in the kitchen, concocting an old-fashioned Indian pudding and
showing Angelique about the oven, as these thoughts passed through my
mind. At that moment Jamie opened the door and looked in.
"I say, Marcia--awfully busy?"
"No, not now; what do you want?"
"You--I 'm lonesome. Come on into the living-room--I 've built up a
roaring fire there--and let's talk; nobody 's around."
"Where 's Doctor Rugvie?"
"Gone off with Cale to the farm. He 'll get pneumonia if he does n't
look out; the place is like an ice-house at this season."
I slipped the pudding into the oven. "Now look out for it and keep
enough milk in it till it wheys, Angelique." I turned to Jamie.
"Where's Mr. Ewart?"
"Oh, Ewart's off nosing about in Quebec for some old furniture for his
den. Pierre drove him to the train just after breakfast. He told
mother he would be back in time for supper."
"That's queer," I said, following him through the bare offices, one of
which was to be the den, into the living-room where stale cigar smoke
still lingered. "Whew! Let's have in some fresh air."
I opened the hinged panes in the double windows; opened the front door
and let in the keen crisp air.
"There, now," I closed them; "we can 'talk' as you say in comfort. I
did n't air out early this morning, for when I came in I found Mr.
Ewart writing. He looked for all the world as if he were making his
last will and testament. I beat a double-quick retreat."
"I 'll bet you did. I 'd make tracks if Ewart looked like that." He
drew up two chairs before the fire. "Here, sit here by me; let's be
comfy when we can. I say, Marcia--"
He paused, leaning to the fire in his favorite position: arms along his
knees, and clasped hands hanging between them. He turned and looked at
me ruefully.
"We all got beyond our depth, did n't we, last night?"
"I thought so."
"The Doctor 's a dear, is n't he?"
"He 's the dearest kind of a dear, and I could n't bear to see him
snubbed by your lord of the manor."
Jamie nodded. "That was rather rough. I don't understand that side of
Ewart--never have seen it but once before, and I would n't mind, you
know, Marcia," he lowered his voice, "if I never saw it again. It made
no end of an atmosphere, did n't it?"
"Thick and--muggy," I replied, searching for the word that should
express the mental and spiritual atmospheric condition, the result of
Mr. Ewart's attitude in last evening's talk. "And it has n't wholly
cleared up yet."
He nodded. "I believe that's why he took himself out of the way this
morning. Look here--I 've a great overpowering longing to confide in
you, Marcia." He laughed.
"Confide then; I 'm a regular safe deposit and trust company. Tell me,
do; I'm dying to talk."
"Oh, you are!" He turned to me with his own bright face illumined.
"Is n't it good that we 're young, Marcia? I feel that forcibly when I
am with so many older men."
"I 'm just beginning to feel young, Jamie; to see my way through that
wilderness you spoke of."
I knew his sympathy, his understanding, not of my life but of the
condition of mind to which that life had brought me. It is this quick
understanding of another's "sphere", I may call it, that makes the
young Scotsman so wonderfully attractive to all who meet him.
"You know what the Doctor said about the world of which he told us last
night and of Andre's world?"