Part 29 (2/2)
”You propose to follow me with those things as if I was an Eastern princess! Perhaps I had better carry them myself if you are afraid of me.”
”I'm not afraid of you,” said Jeffreys.
”But you are afraid of auntie. So am I--I hope she'll meet us. What were you saying about the weather, Mr Jeffreys?”
Jeffreys glanced in alarm at his audacious companion. He had nothing for it after this challenge but to walk with her and brave the consequences. There was something in her half-mutinous, half-confiding manner which rather interested him, and made the risk he was now running rather exhilarating.
”Percy seems to have forsaken you,” said she, after a pause, ”since his friends came. I suppose he is sure to be blowing his brains out or something of the sort on the moors.”
”Percy is a fine fellow, and certainly has some brains to blow,”
observed Jeffreys solemnly.
Raby laughed. ”He's quite a reformed character since you came,” said she; ”I'm jealous of you!”
”Why?”
”Oh, he cuts me, now he has you! He used about once a week to offer to show me what he was doing. Now he only offers once a month, and then always thinks better of it.”
”The thing is to get him to work at one thing at a time,” said Jeffreys, to whom Percy was always an interesting study. ”As soon as he has learned that art he will do great things.”
”I think Percy would make a fine soldier,” said Raby, with an enthusiasm which quite captivated her companion, ”he's so brave and honest and determined. Isn't he?”
”Yes, and clever too.”
”Of course; but my father always says a man needn't be clever to be a good soldier. He says the clever soldiers are the least valuable.”
”Was your father a soldier?”
”Was? He is. He's in Afghanistan now.”
”In the middle of all the fighting?”
”Yes,” said Raby, with a shade across her bright face. ”It's terrible, isn't it? I half dread every time I see a letter or a newspaper. Mr Jeffreys!” added the girl, stopping short in her walk, ”my father is the best and bravest man that ever lived.”
”I know he is,” said Jeffreys, beginning to wonder whether some of the father's good qualities were not hereditary.
Raby looked up curiously and then laughed.
”You judge of him by seeing how heroic I am braving my aunt's wrath! Oh dear, I do hope she meets us. It would be such a waste of courage if she doesn't.”
”I have benefited by your courage,” said Jeffreys, quite staggered at his own gallantry.
”I expect you're awfully dull in that old library,” said the girl; ”you should hear how uncle praises you behind your back! Poor auntie--”
At that moment they turned a corner of the shrubbery leading up to the house, and found themselves suddenly face to face with Mrs Rimbolt with a gentleman and two or three of her lady guests. Jeffreys flushed up as guiltily as if he had been detected in a highway robbery, and absolutely forgot to salute. Even Raby, who was not at all sure that her aunt had not overheard their last words, was taken aback and looked confused.
Mrs Rimbolt bridled up like a cat going into action. She took in the situation at a glance, and drew her own inferences.
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