Part 35 (1/2)
”I am awfully comfortable--but it's most ... unprofessional--please don't tell anybody else.”
Meg closed her eyes, looking rather like a sleepy kitten, and Miles watched her in silence with a pain at his heart. Something kept saying over and over again: ”Six years ago that girl there ran off with Walter Brooke. Six years ago that apparently level-headed, sensible little person was dazzled by the pinchbeck graces of that epicure in sensations.” Miles fully granted his charm, his gentle melancholy, his caressing manner; but with it all Miles felt that he was so plainly ”a wrong-'un,” so clearly second-rate and untrustworthy--and a nice girl ought to recognise these things intuitively.
Miles looked very sad and grave, and Meg, suddenly opening her eyes, found him regarding her with this incomprehensible expression.
”You are not exactly talkative,” she said.
”I thought, perhaps, you wanted to rest, and would rather not talk.
Maybe I'm a bit of a bore, and you'd rather I went away?”
”You have not yet asked after William.”
”I hoped to find William, but he's nowhere to be seen.”
”He's with Jan and the children. I think”--here Meg lifted her curly head over the edge of the hammock--”he is the very darlingest animal in the world. I love William.”
”You do! I knew you would.”
”I do. He's so faithful and kind and understanding.”
”Has he been quite good?”
”Well ... once or twice he may have been a little--destructive--but you expect that with children.”
”I hope you punish him.”
”Jan does. Jan has a most effectual slap, but there's always a dreadful disturbance with the children on these occasions. Little Fay roars the house down when William has to be chastised.”
”What has he done?”
”I'm not going to tell tales of William.”
Miles and Meg smiled at one another, and Walter Brooke faded from his mind.
”Perhaps,” he said, and paused, ”you will by and by allow to William's late master a small portion of that regard?”
”If William's master on further acquaintance proves half as loyal and trustworthy as William--I couldn't help it.”
”I wonder what you mean exactly by loyal and trustworthy?”
”They're not very elastic terms, are they?”
”Don't you think they mean rather the same thing?”
”Not a bit,” Meg cried eagerly; ”a person might be ever so trustworthy and yet not loyal. I take it that trustworthy and honest in tangible things are much the same. Loyalty is something intangible, and often means belief in people when everything seems against them. It's a much rarer quality than to be trustworthy. William would stick to one if one hadn't a crust, just because he liked to be there to make things a bit less wretched.”
Miles smoked in silence for a minute, and again Meg closed her eyes.