Part 9 (1/2)

”I've seen the name, 'Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald,'” the detestable girl went on, pus.h.i.+ng into the room without asking permission. ”She's going to 'open,' as the paper expresses it, in a new play called 'The Nelly Affair,' on Monday night at the Lyceum Theatre. Next Monday! Nearly a week from now! How can I wait--what shall I do till then?”

It was to Somerled that she appealed. She made him feel that the responsibility was his. And it was a bad moment to feel this, because of Mrs. West's telegram from Grandma. He got up from the sofa, still jingling the money in his pockets. Looking down at Aline he saw only her profile and an ear as deeply pink as coral under a loop of blond hair.

Evidently she too was feeling the situation. Good of her to take an interest! She really was good. She had asked his advice. Now he would ask hers.

”Mrs. West and I will talk over a plan I have for you,” he said to the girl.

”Is it your plan--or hers?” asked Barrie anxiously.

”It will be both by the time you hear it,” he answered, with a rea.s.suring smile.

Aline humoured him. ”Run away and play, little girl, till the plan is cooked,” she gayly cried. ”Play with my brother.”

Barrie backed out, feeling as if she had been half smothered with a perfumed pillow.

”Do you guess my plan?” asked Ian.

”I wonder?” Aline murmured. She could not have spoken aloud just then.

”It's this. Why shouldn't we take her with us in the car to Edinburgh?

We've lots of room.”

She had known that this would come. All she had done had only hastened the catastrophe. ”That poor old lady,” she stammered. ”I can't help sympathizing--being a little sorry for her. Isn't she, then, to be considered--after bringing up the girl?”

”You think,” he said reflectively, ”that she ought to be consulted?”

”Oh, I do!”

”Very well. Then I'll go and have it out with her myself.”

”The telegram!” thought Mrs. West, her ears more coraline than ever.

”After all,” she faltered, ”perhaps it would bring about complications.

She might resort to--to something legal. Fancy if she sent the police to get back her granddaughter.”

Somerled laughed and said nothing. He was not in a mood for argument.

”He won't go,” Aline thought. ”Thank Heaven, he hates bother.”

This was true of Somerled as a rule; but his rules had exceptions.

VIII

So this was the garden where that strange flower of girlhood had budded and blossomed. All at once Barrie, in her quaintness, became a readable riddle to Somerled.

The two gates in the high wall were kept bolted, but there was a jangling bell for each, the gate for visitors (it was almost supererogatory), and the gate for tradesmen and servants. An elderly and sullenly astonished woman opened the visitors' gate for Somerled, and made of her lean form a barrier lest he should try to pa.s.s. But she being narrowly built, on somewhat Gothic lines, and the gateway being broad, Somerled saw past the flying b.u.t.tresses of her skirts into the background. And it was this background that explained in a flash why the girl knew less of life than a bird which has learned to use its wings; also the reason why she could never return to waste her young years behind the garden wall of Hillard House. The thought came into Somerled's mind that it would be interesting to show her the world she had never seen, not only between Carlisle and Edinburgh, but over the hills and far away, as far as the purple island of Dhrum, set in its sunset frame of ocean gold--or even farther. That could not be, of course, but the picture was pleasant.

He had prepared himself to be ingratiating; but he realized that ingratiation was not a successful line to pursue with dragons. Instead of inquiring politely if Mrs. MacDonald were at home, he said bluntly, ”I wish to see Mrs. MacDonald; I have business with her--not my business, but hers. And you may tell her I am not The MacDonald of Dhrum, but _a_ MacDonald from Dhrum, a very different thing.”