Part 7 (2/2)

For several paces after the encounter at Warrenpoint, neither Jack nor Eileen spoke, and though he tried hard to see her face, she kept it resolutely turned from him toward the Loch.

”Is Mr Blake's friend someone staying with them?” she asked at last.

”I expect so,” he answered. ”I don't remember ever seeing her before.”

Eileen was feeling a little sick and dazed, so when they met Paddy and Ted Masterman, she suggested at once that they should return home, and Paddy, feeling irritated with things in general, agreed with alacrity.

”Oh, by the way,” she remarked later, as they were going up to bed, ”Mr Masterman and I met Lawrence Blake with that Harcourt girl, who used to stay with them. She's a cousin or something, don't you remember?

Lawrence used to say she could talk as fast as three ordinary women in one, but that as she never expected to be answered, it was rather a rest, because you needn't listen. That's how he looked to-night; as if he were taking a rest.”

”Are you sure it was Miss Harcourt? I didn't recognise her.”

”Quite sure. She looks very different with her hair up, that's all. I should have stopped them, but I heard her say they were very late, and they seemed in a hurry, so I didn't.”

Eileen turned away in silence, but a weight was lifted off her mind.

The following day, as she was sitting reading by the water, while Jack and Paddy were out fis.h.i.+ng, a firm step on the s.h.i.+ngle suddenly roused her, and Lawrence himself approached.

”How do you do?” he said, with a pleasant smile. ”I came down here before going up to the house, rather expecting to find some of you such a beautiful afternoon.”

Eileen shook hands simply, with the usual greetings, but a lovely flood of colour, that she could not control, spread over her face, and was noted with a certain amount of gratification by Lawrence's experienced eye.

”It's pleasant to be seeing old friends again,” he said. ”May I sit down?”

She moved to make more room for him, and asked at once after his mother and sisters.

”Mother is very well,” he said, ”and the girls are full of frocks and hair-dressing. There's to be a big dance next month, and I suppose I shall have to stay for it.”

”Were you going away again, then?”

”I rarely stay long anywhere,” a little ambiguously.

”Have you decided where to go?”

”Not quite. I shall not decide until a few days before starting, I expect. But how is everybody at The Ghan House? Does his lords.h.i.+p of the rectory hate me as cordially as ever? I see Paddy has not yet managed to get herself transported to a better clime.”

While Eileen replied to his questions, her slender white hands played a little nervously with a flower, and her deep eyes fluttered between the distant mountains and her companion's face. She felt he was studying her, and knew there was admiration in his eyes, and her heart felt foolishly glad.

”Have we been away three whole years?” he said presently. ”How strange!

It seems like three months now I am back. Shall I find everyone as unchanged as you, Eileen?”

”I am three years older,” she said, with a little smile.

”Yes, but there are some people to whom the years make very little difference. I think you are one of them.”

”Yet I feel different.”

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