"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 fagged, 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
passer 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
adventitious 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
multitude 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 butter--we
were very young. Then circumstances 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-assault
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," assented 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 shells too; all the pretty things I
can pick up."
"Thank you, Rick; I like pretty things."
He flushed with pleasure at her tone and words.
"Well, good-bye," she said, turning to Will Lockhart. "I hope the
elements won't be too strong for you."
"Or for you."
Confidence here also, but of a different sort,--the sort which can
give a reason for the faith that is in it. It seemed, however, as if
Lady Maud's wish was not to be fulfilled; for as Rick Halmar and his
companion set off across the moor, the southwest wind, even at that
distance from the shore, sent a shower of spindrift in their faces.
"No leaving Carbost Bay for you tonight," shouted Rick against the
wind. "You had better stay at our place. You used to know Aunt Will
long ago, didn't you?"
"Yes, but I must get on. It may calm any moment, and the yacht sails
as soon as possible."
Nevertheless when, after scudding with the wind at their backs for two
miles, they came upon the ferry, one glance showed even Will
Lockhart's inexperienced eye that the cockleshell of a boat, bobbing
up and down in the backwater, could never fight its way through that
mad melee of wind against tide in the middle of the narrow stream.
Comparative calm reigned to one side in the inland loch, and to the
other in the open sea; but here the waves leapt at each other in
pyramids, sending jets of spray upwards with the very force of their
meeting. A good thrower could easily have flung a stone across the
channel; for all that, it was impassable till the tired tide should
turn and join the wind in its race eastward. So, at any rate, said
Rick, adding that his aunt would be delighted at a _contretemps_ which
would procure her a visit from an old friend.
Why Will Lockhart should have hesitated, when it was raining cats and
dogs, and it was two-and-twenty years since he had parted in anger
from the hot-headed, quick-tongued chit of eighteen, who was now, by
all accounts, a brisk, contented woman of forty, is not easy of
explanation. Perhaps the thought of Lady Maud's triumph rankled;
perhaps, when all was said and done, he was not quite indifferent to
that possible future with the professor. But he did hesitate for a
moment. That early love-affair had strangely enough been his first and
last: not because it was in itself absorbing, but because other things
more absorbing than Love had stepped in to take possession of his
life. For a year or two, no doubt, resentment had lingered, not very
keenly felt, but sufficiently so to prevent other love-affairs. Then
he had painted his first successful picture, and that had been an end
of all things, save Art, and a rather unreal remembrance that he had
loved and lost.
However, common sense came to his aid, as it was bound to do in
that drenching rain. And, after all, the professor was not in the
well-remembered drawing-room whither Rick led him; neither was Miss
Willina. Fortunately, perhaps, for her dignity, of which she was
extremely tenacious, she had been in the potting-shed feeding a late
brood of chickens presented to her that morning by an inexperienced
young mother, who had preferred a bed of nettles behind the peat stack
to the comforts of the hen-house nursery. So she had ample opportunity
of seeing them pass up the ferry-path and of grasping the situation;
to say nothing of smoothing her hair and washing her hands, before
putting in an appearance; the which is a great support to most women
in the crises of life. As a matter of fact, however, Miss Willina had
never regarded this episode of her earliest years of conquest as one
of supreme importance; perhaps some slight inkling that it really did
mean more than she was prepared to admit was at the bottom of her
deliberate want of romance on the subject. She had had many admirers,
had them still for that matter; she was perfectly aware, for instance,
of the professor's interest; but, for all that, she had never felt
inclined to marry since those salad days when she had drowned her
resentment in the knowledge that half the men who knew her were at her
feet. Why should she marry? There was plenty of time and opportunity
if she wished it; and then, when time passed, leaving her still Miss
Macdonald, she told herself and every one else that it was of her own
free will and pleasure. As it undoubtedly was. She scouted regrets,
and only when the masterful current of her vitality slackened, as even
hers had to do at times, did she wonder if that early love-affair had
not been at the bottom of her cold-bloodedness.
Will Lockhart did not think her much changed. The daintiness and
wilfulness he chiefly remembered were still there, and it was like old
times to hear her order him up with Rick, to "change his feet," and
see the swift touch with which she rescued an antimacassar from
annihilation when he sate down. And this want of change depressed him,
by emphasizing the long years which he could not forget.
There she was, much as he remembered her, and he--people told him also
that he had changed but little. Yet in those old days it had seemed
impossible to conceive of life apart, and here they were, both free,
both unmarried, talking calmly, with a new generation for listener,
about that past time. What had kept them separate except their own
free will? Nothing! and yet had either of them deliberately
anticipated this ending when they quarrelled over the bread and
butter? And now she was thinking of the professor, or at any rate the
professor was thinking of her. That was Lady Maud's account, and there
was certainly a suspicion of consciousness when the learned man's name
was mentioned; a palpable flush indeed, when a faint whistle overbore
that of the wind, and she started from her chair.
"Rick! it can't surely be Mr. Endorwick!"
The blush made her look years younger, and Will Lockhart felt
distinctly aggrieved at the fact.
"By George, it is, though," replied her nephew, after a glance through
the field-glasses which hung ready for the purpose on the window-knob.
"There he is on the other side of the stream. He has hoisted the flag,
and is blowing away at the whistle like fits. His umbrella's inside
out, and his mackintosh floating on the breeze. Do look, Aunt Will.
It's awfully comic."
Miss Willina's face was a study of dignity and humour; the first
prevailed. "Eric! I am surprised at your levity. The poor man will be
drenched to the skin, and he so delicate; such a distinguished scholar
too; we could ill afford to lose him."
"Give me the glass," said Will Lockhart grimly. The sight of his
supposed successor signalling for the impossible gave him a thrill of
satisfaction; for he, at least, was on the right side of the stream.
And then to the keen little creature at his side came a mood well
remembered.
"The born idiot! Any Christian would have stopped at the hotel even if
he was wanting to come on. A fool for his pains! Ah! what's the use of
blowing like a hooter with the wind and tide against you? Gracious
goody! Rick, what's to be done? The gawk can't be left there like a
windmill."
The comparison was not inapt; for the professor, seeing them,
doubtless, against the firelight within, was waving his arms
frantically.
"I'll go down and signal him to that bieldy bit behind the big rock.
It's out of the wind anyhow, and the tide will be turning before he
could walk back to shelter. And I'll stop in the boat-house; it will
comfort him to see me smoking, especially if he has forgotten his
matches. Besides, I must put new rowlocks to the four-oar. We'll want
her, and the men too, if any one is to cross the stream tonight."
"That's a nice boy," said Will Lockhart, putting down the glasses as
Rick's figure on its way to the boat-house blocked out the professor's
increasing despair. "Just about the age I was when--" He paused and
looked at his companion.
"Yes! You were twenty-one, and I was eighteen."
They were standing close together, the firelight throwing their
shadows out faintly against the growing darkness, but on their faces
the dull autumn twilight lingered, blotting out all traces of the
passage of time.
He came a little nearer to her.
"I wonder why we quarrelled?" he said argumentatively. "I don't mean
what we quarrelled about. That was never very difficult to find, was
it? But why did we quarrel finally that last time? I don't recollect
that you were more wilful than usual."
"No doubt you were more aggravating," she retorted quickly. "Do you
wish to begin it all over again? I will if you've a mind to."
"Begin what?"
"The quarrel, of course."
"No, thank you. There's the professor hauling down his flag; he has
seen Rick, and acknowledged his defeat. Good man! Don't you think,
Miss Macdonald, that it would be more comfortable by the fire than
here at the window?"
"More comfortable than the professor is, poor man. That is what you
mean. How selfish all you men are, and then you expect me not to see
through you!"
"I don't think I ever was quite so _exigeant_ as that, was I? And, do
you know, I rather wish you would just cast your eye over my innermost
thoughts at the present moment. It would save me beating about the
bush."
Perhaps, despite her outward calm, she was a little excited; for she
had taken up her knitting, half mechanically, and now the needles
clashed fast and furious. He was leaning towards her, his elbows on
his knees, his hands loosely clasped together, and something of his
youth, not so much in its romance as in its imperious desire to know
and understand, was in his face.
"Miss Macdonald, I've no right to ask, but are you going to
marry--that man on the other side?"
She gave a little conscious laugh, half-nervous, half-gratified. "That
is what you call beating about the bush, I suppose? Why--why should I
marry anybody?"
For the life of him he could not tell, save that in a vague way that
dead past seemed so pitiful: because it was dead and past. "Why did we
quarrel?" he repeated. "If the _Clansman_ hadn't come in unexpectedly
that evening after her time, and so given me an opportunity of going
off in the sulks, we should have made it up as usual. It seems such a
little thing to come between us."
She laid down her knitting and looked at him thoughtfully. A woman
less truthful than Miss Willina might have allowed the inevitable
satisfaction of being remembered to give an extra tinge of regret and
romance to that past, which in sober fact had had little of either;
but Miss Willina's sense of humour was of the rare kind which is not
blunted by egotism.
"Ridiculously little. In the novels--I read dozens of them in the
winter--it is always something pathetic. A letter left in a blotting
book, or a wrong initial on the envelope, or a false announcement of
marriage. Something not to be foreseen or helped. Or if it isn't the
fault of fate, they get brain fever and forget their own names. But
we! We just quarrelled, and didn't care to make it up. It isn't in the
least romantic, I'm afraid."
"But we didn't forget," he said in the same argumentative tone. "At
least I didn't."
"Of course not. Does any one ever forget,--absolutely?" Her voice
trembled slightly. The pathos of memory was not to be ignored
entirely.
"It seems such a pity--you and I leading such lonely lives."
"Lonely? You should see my Noah's Ark."
"Well! Don't scoff at me. I suppose it is absurd, but to-night
somehow--"
She interrupted him with a soft hand laid on his. "Don't, please
don't. It is like children trying to pretend that their shadows on the
wall are alive. But they are shadows; nothing but shadows, and the
light which throws them--" she pointed to the window with a laugh that
was half a sob. "Poor man! he ought to be extinguished by this time."
"Perhaps you are right," he replied sadly, still holding her hand;
"but it seems hard--the shadows were so pretty."
"Not so pretty as the reality."
"What is that?"
"That we have met and forgiven each other--without payment."
"Aunt Will," shouted Rick, bursting into the room, "there's the
professor in the front hall dripping like a drowned rat. I got the men
and ferried him over on the first chance; now they are waiting for Mr.
Lockhart."
Miss Willina was on her feet in a moment. "Take him upstairs, Rick,
and put him to bed--between the blankets. I'll come directly with
gruel and mustard. And, Rick! give him a good scrub--all over--with
the roughest--bath towel--you can find."
The last directions were called up the stairs as she went into the
hall to see Will Lockhart put on his mackintosh properly.
"Good-bye, Miss Macdonald. I'm not in the least envious of the
professor's immediate future," he said with smiling eyes, but with
vague regrets still at his heart. "I'm glad, though, he was at the
other side of the stream to-night. I liked the shadows."
"And the reality?" she asked quickly.
He stooped and kissed the pretty little hand browned by sun and wind.
"It is like the breath of your sea. The memory of it will help to blow
away the cobwebs until I come back--in the summer."
"The summer is over."
"Not St. Martin's, and one often has a spell of fine weather late in
the year when the earlier portions have been stormy."
She shook her head.
V
"Well, Hooper, what is it?"
Lady Maud stood at bay once more, with that diffident-looking man at
the door. Three weeks had passed since his first interview; only three
weeks, and it seemed to her an eternity of fear and anxiety. But now
the letters written in reply to hers had come from the American
doctor, and she knew the worst. Mr. Wilson's case had at once been
easy and difficult. Easy because of his singular lack of will power;
difficult for the same reason, joined to a very bad ancestral record.
So bad that his maternal uncle, from whom he had inherited his large
fortune, being deeply resentful of the treatment his sister had
endured from her drunken husband, had burdened his legacy with certain
unusual conditions as to sobriety and control. Consequently, when,
shortly after his release from the restraints of minority, the
inherited tendency had shown itself in Mr. Wilson, he had voluntarily
placed himself in Dr. Haddon's charge, urged to the step by his fear
of pecuniary loss. That was, briefly, the whole story, save that he,
Dr. Haddon, continued to have charge of the case and would be obliged
if Lady Maud would co-operate with him in continuing a system which
had hitherto been so successful, and which, he did not scruple to add,
was Mr. Wilson's only chance of fulfilling the conditions under which
he held his fortune. For himself, he believed there was no danger of a
relapse; it might even be possible after some years to relax the
supervision, and in any case he begged her to remember that the
hereditary tendency must needs be weakened by a generation even of
enforced sobriety. He had hoped that there might be no necessity for
her to be made acquainted with these circumstances, as the whole
affair had been dealt with in the strictest confidence, and the
essence of his treatment lay in ignoring the difficulty; but now that
the untoward event reported by Hooper had occurred, it was better she
should clearly understand the position of affairs. Briefly, he was
paid for keeping Mr. Wilson from losing a very large portion of his
wealth. Apart from that, it was an interesting case. In regard to
Hooper, he was thoroughly trustworthy and conscientious,--a most
necessary thing when influence was easy to attain. At the same time,
if Hooper failed to commend himself to Lady Maud, he could be
replaced. In view of the heavy stake at issue, however, he would
recommend extreme caution in making any change. As for his reasons for
allowing Mr. Wilson to marry under the circumstances, they were
manifold; and his belief in the system was so great that he felt
confident Lady Maud would never find cause for blame in her husband's
conduct. The letter, in its bald statement of fact, its assumption of
a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs, carried with it a sort of
cold comfort. And yet Lady Maud felt a wild revolt against it such as
no verdict of disease or death would have aroused.
Like most women who marry men to whom they are indifferent, she had
looked forward, odd as it may seem, to having children who would give
a zest to an otherwise insipid life. And now the mere possibility was
a terror: not in pity for those who might come handicapped into the
race, but from sheer physical horror that they should be his and hers.
And this terror came uppermost in the first few minutes of shock.
"I have heard from Dr. Haddon this morning, my lady. In future I am to
take my orders from you; so I have come to ask for them."
The disapproval in his tone was audible. She felt a rash, resentful
desire to bid him go and leave her free, but the doctor's warning
checked the words. What if she should have burdened her life for
nothing,--she who had refused money again and again because it seemed
vulgar to her fastidiousness? She might appeal to her husband as a
man, chance her influence against the Hooper-Haddon system; but what
if she failed? During those last three weeks she had silenced the
heart which, despite all her efforts, would have its way, by
protestations that she was only awaiting the doctor's reply, that by
and by she would no longer consent to be this man's wife on these
terms. To live on as if she knew nothing; to give neither help nor
condemnation; to acquiesce without a word in a future which filled her
with shame and horror.
When she knew the facts, she would decide, and now she knew too much.
"I have no orders," she said in a low voice; "no new ones; you can
go." Then suddenly a thought flashed through her and she arrested him
with a gesture.
"Yes, my lady?"
Still she was silent, one hand gripping the edge of the table, her
breath coming fast. "I do not think--this place--is good for Mr.
Wilson."
"Indeed, your ladyship," broke in Hooper, relieved, "I have thought so
myself,--the--the irregular habits in regard to spirits are trying."
"I think he would be better away."
"Exactly so, my lady; only I did not like--all the arrangements being,
as it were, settled."
Her voice had gained in steadiness by this time. "There need be no
alteration. I should remain here, of course." She paused, and Hooper
shifted uneasily. "Mr. Wilson had an invitation to Perthshire
yesterday. I should _like_ him to accept it. Do you understand?"
"But indeed, my lady, I cannot. To begin with, I am not allowed by Dr.
Haddon--"
She stopped him angrily. "If you cannot obey me, there are others--so
Dr. Haddon says. I consider this place is bad for Mr. Wilson, and it
is my wish he should leave it. Do you hear?"
For the life of her, try after calmness as she would, entreaty and
despair made her command falter. He must go--if only to give her time
to think; time to settle what course she would choose.
"If your ladyship takes the responsibility--in regard to Dr. Haddon, I
mean."
"I take it all--the responsibility for everything."
"Then I will suggest it. I may not succeed; but I will do my best, and
if I fail, your ladyship must remember that I was not engaged for such
work."
The grotesqueness of it all struck her sense of humour despite the
turmoil of emotion in which she found herself.
"Yes, yes!" she said impatiently; "I will remember it was not your
place!"
When he had gone, she stood for some time without moving, her hand
still grasping the table, body and mind alike in a state of tension.
Then her nerves seemed to slacken, the spirit to leave her. She walked
listlessly towards the fire, and, leaning her arms on the mantelpiece,
rested her head upon them. So standing, the little curls about her
temples outlined themselves against the ugliness of Rick Halmar's
devil.
"It is not all my fault," she muttered with a sort of sob; "not all my
fault, surely. I must have time. I must have time."
The rest of the day was torture to her. She did not regret the sudden
impulse which had decreed her husband's exile, if it could be managed,
yet she dreaded to have him say the words which would proclaim the
success of her treachery against him. He came over once to where she
sate in the twilight pretending to read, and laid his hand
affectionately on her shoulder. It was only some trivial remark he had
to make, but she started so visibly that Eustace, watching her, as he
had watched her every mood during those weeks, came to her afterwards
with a frown.
"What is the matter, Maud? Why should you keep me at arm's length?
Surely I know too much for that already."
"What do you know?" she asked with the recklessness which of late had
crept into her manner.
"I know you are unhappy. Do you remember what I told you that night?
You shall not suffer."
Her lips trembled, and she turned from him hastily to join a group
gathered round the professor. He had come back from Eval House greatly
depressed in spirits, and with a running cold in his head, which
Cynthia Strong was treating with pulsatilla, as yet rather
unsuccessfully; but it required time, she explained, when the first
stages had been badly managed on the old methods. The group was
engaged in examining the famous Rhine ring, with which gift,
apparently, Miss Willina had tried to content the learned man; but
even its possession failed to comfort him.
"I have deciphered the inscription," he said gloomily. "It is,
briefly, 'Order, Truth, Honesty.' The last word bears many side
meanings, and perhaps Purity would be a better translation. All the
terminations being feminine, it may be inferred that the ring was worn
by a woman; possibly one of unusual worth. It may even have been a
badge of virtue; a tribute paid by the community to merit, or by the
lover to his beloved."
If he had said a funeral memento to the dead, his voice could not have
been more lugubrious.
"How interesting!" murmured Cynthia Strong. "Even in those days the
mental qualities were deemed superior to mere physical attractions."
"I beg your pardon," retorted the professor quite tartly. "Order, as
used here, means complete, perfect; according to our modern speech,
beautiful. Truth has also a secondary meaning. A free, but at the same
time accurate, translation would be 'Beautiful, constant, chaste.'"
Rick Halmar was twisting the ring about in his strong deft hands. "I
expect some beggar gave it to his wife," he said cheerfully. "It must
have been just as jolly then as now to have somebody to stick by you
through thick and thin. To have the dinner ready, and not swear if you
hadn't done what you ought to have done. Not brought in enough fish
for the kids, for instance; though how they ever caught any with those
bone hooks, I can't think. I couldn't."
"You must remember the great incentive of hunger," remarked the
professor in the same tone. "Besides, in those days dexterity in the
chase was the master key to a woman's affections."
"I say, Weeks, old man! why weren't you born then?" cried Rick,
happily unconscious of all complications.
"Never had any luck," muttered the other, "except with the birds."
"Luck! I like that! You call it luck when you never miss; I assure
you, Miss Strong," he continued, going up to where the despondent
captain was standing, and addressing the nearest lady, "I was out with
him yesterday, and he made me feel such a duffer. The prettiest
shooting, and then he calls it luck!"
Cynthia Strong looked from one to the other of those two vigorous
young faces before her, and then at the professor's pale one. A cold
in the head is not becoming, and she sighed.
Rick, with the ring still in his possession, returned to Lady Maud.
"Isn't it quaint?" he said. "Don't you wish I could find another?"
"Why?"
"Because it would be yours, of course. How small it looks! I wonder if
it would fit you."
"Miss Macdonald found it too large for her," remarked the professor,
still more gloomily; "but it would be interesting, Lady Maud, to try
whether it points to any improvement or deterioration--physical, of
course--in the race."
"Perhaps you ladies would not mind experimenting 'Cinderella and the
little glass slipper,'" laughed Eustace Gordon. "What is to be the
prize, Endorwick--the ring?"
"My dear sir," gasped the professor, horrified for once out of his
gallantry, "it's unique--positively unique."
"I'll tell you what," put in Rick eagerly, "if the professor will lend
it to me for a couple of days, I'll copy it in silver. A florin would
make it, and the inscriptions only scratched on. So now, then, ladies,
if you please. Weeks, you do herald. Lady Maud, may we use the banner
screen as a tabard?"
"What a boy that is!" said fat Lady Liddell to her next-door
neighbour. "I've been here a fortnight, and never saw him out of
temper or out of spirits. So different from most young people
nowadays, who won't take the trouble to enjoy themselves."
"I knew it wouldn't go on anybody's finger but yours," said Rick with
joyous confidence to his goddess when the competition was over.
"Perhaps it wasn't quite fair, because I'd seen Aunt Will try it on so
often, and her hands are tiny."
Lady Maud shook her head gravely. "I'm afraid it wasn't quite fair;
but you must make me the ring, for all that."
"Of course I'll make it!"
She put her hand on his suddenly. "Don't, Rick! don't! I mean"--she
paused, looking at him curiously--"you may make it if you like, Rick;
but I won't promise to wear it--always."