Part 30 (1/2)

”I shall go on--sooner or later,” replied Somerled. ”But--I shall have a look round Edinburgh first, and see what has happened to my old haunts.”

I thought her face brightened.

”Aline and I must 'do' Edinburgh too, of course,” said I.

She smiled, but as if she were thinking of something else. And it was then that suddenly, for the first time, I felt capable of developing into an able-bodied villain--in fact, committing any crime which could transfer from him to me the kind of look she had given Somerled.

”I must of course go back to Carlisle and my work, as soon as I have paid my respects to Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald,” remarked Mrs. James.

”We'll talk of all that to-morrow,” said Somerled, who, I suppose, engaged her at so much a thousand words--I mean, so much a day--as chaperon for his ”ward.” ”Whatever happens, you must see Edinburgh while you're here. And besides, it's on the cards that I may be able to give you a pleasant little surprise before you leave Scotland. I rather hoped for details of it to-day; but there's nothing interesting in the mail they handed me at the desk” (he said this like a native-born American), ”so we must have patience till to-morrow.”

”A surprise!” echoed Mrs. James, looking quite pretty and young, as she surprisingly does sometimes. ”Does Barrie know?”

”No,” said Somerled. ”Barrie doesn't know.”

There was just time to go to our new rooms and make ourselves respectable for church, no light thing in Scotland. Aline and the Vannecks hadn't turned up yet, but, knowing them and knowing Blunderbore, I thought nothing strange of the delay. Aline's game was, of course, to make Somerled jealous of George Vanneck, her old and well-worn chattel, whom she at heart despises, and to seem not too eager for his (Somerled's) society, while I, attached to his party by special arrangement, could protect her interests--and my own.

Somerled had ordered Vedder to wait with the Dragon when the luggage had been taken down, and thus we saved ourselves some minutes which we should have lost in walking. We left the car as soon as possible, however, and plunged into the beauty and squalor of the High Street on foot. I annexed Barrie as a companion, and Somerled did not fight for her. Quietly he contented, or seemed to content, himself with Mrs. James, and my impression was confirmed that, whether he wanted Barrie or not, he was deliberately standing aside in my favour, giving me my ”chance”--perhaps to test Barrie or me--or both. Who could tell? Not I. Somerled is hard to read, even for a professional character-vivisectionist.

”Are you too much excited, and taken up with thoughts of your mother, to care about all this?” I asked the girl.

She admitted that she was excited, and perhaps a little absent-minded; but ”all this,” as I called it, was too wonderful not to capture her interest in spite of everything.

”Think of Queen Mary and her four Maries, and Darnley, and Rizzio, and Bothwell, and John Knox pa.s.sing along as we pa.s.s now, on their way up to Holyrood?” said I.

”Yes. Oh, yes! I _do_ think of them,” she answered obediently, her eyes straying into the shadows of wynd or close, or tracing out the detail of some carved gargoyle on an old facade.

”Only you think of yourself more----”

”Not myself exactly. But----”

”What then?”

”Well--one thinks of queer things in a place like this, full of romances and--and love stories. I was wondering----”

”Yes. Don't be afraid to tell me. We're fellow-authors, you know--brother and sister of the pen.”

”That's it! Brother and sister, aren't we? How nice!”

”Of the pen,” I amended hastily.

”Story writers must know all about love,” she hesitated.

”We do,” I encouraged her to go on.

”Then how, if you were writing a story (I'm thinking I may want to do one), would you make a girl sure whether she'd fallen in love with somebody?”

”I should make her,” I answered cautiously, with an earthquake in my heart, ”I should make her feel--er--a sort of electric thrill when he touched her, or looked into her eyes. I should make her feel that nothing was worth doing unless the man was with her.”

”I know!” the girl murmured. ”She would feel, wouldn't she, as if he _must_ be there--as if she just couldn't go on living if he weren't.”

”That's it,” I said. ”You've described it graphically.”