Part 37 (1/2)

It was several seconds before Winston answered, and then he took the bold course.

”Well?” he said.

Maud Barrington made a curious little gesture. ”I knew I had seen it before at the bridge, but that was not all. It was vaguely familiar, and I felt I ought to know it. It reminded me of somebody.”

”Of me?” and Winston laughed.

”No. There was a resemblance, but it was very superficial. That man's face had little in common with yours.”

”These faint likenesses are not unusual,” said Winston, and once more Maud Barrington looked at him steadily.

”No,” she said, ”of course not. Well, we will conclude that my fancies ran away with me, and be practical. What is wheat doing just now?”

”Rising still,” said Winston, and regretted the alacrity with which he had seized the opportunity of changing the topic when he saw that it had not escaped the notice of his companion. ”You and I and a few others will be rich this year.”

”Yes, but I am afraid some of the rest will find it has only further anxieties for them.”

”I fancy,” said Winston, ”you are thinking of one.”

Maud Barrington nodded. ”Yes. I am sorry for him.”

”Then it would please you if I tried to straighten out things for him?

It would be difficult, but I believe it could be accomplished.”

Maud Barrington's eyes were grateful, but there was something that Winston could not fathom behind her smile.

”If you undertook it. One could almost believe you had the wonderful lamp,” she said.

Winston smiled somewhat dryly. ”Then all its virtues will be tested to-night, and I had better make a commencement while I have the courage. Colonel Barrington is in?”

Maud Barrington went with him to the door, and then laid her hand a moment on his arm. ”Lance,” she said, with a little tremor in her voice, ”if there was a time when our distrust hurt you, it has recoiled upon our heads. You have returned it with a splendid generosity.”

Winston could not trust himself to answer, but walked straight to Barrington's room, and finding the door open, went quietly in. The head of the Silverdale settlement was sitting at a littered table in front of a shaded lamp, and the light that fell upon it showed the care in his face. It grew a trifle grimmer when he saw the younger man.

”Will you sit down?” he said. ”I have been looking for a visit from you for some little time. It would have been more fitting had you made it earlier.”

Winston nodded as he took a chair. ”I fancy I understand you, but I have nothing that you expect to hear to tell you, sir.”

”That,” said Barrington, ”is unfortunate. Now, it is not my business to pose as a censor of the conduct of any man here, except when it affects the community, but their friends have sent out a good many young English lads, some of whom have not been too discreet in the old country, to me. They did not do so solely that I might teach them farming. A charge of that kind is no light responsibility, and I look for a.s.sistance from the men who have almost as large a stake as I have in the prosperity of Silverdale.”

”Have you ever seen me do anything you could consider prejudicial to it?” asked Winston.

”I have not,” said Colonel Barrington.

”And it was by her own wish Miss Barrington, who, I fancy, is seldom mistaken, asked me to the Grange?”

”It is a good plea,” said Barrington. ”I cannot question anything my sister does.”

”Then we will let it pa.s.s, though I am afraid you will consider what I am going to ask a further presumption. You have forward wheat to deliver, and find it difficult to obtain it?”

Barrington's smile was somewhat grim. ”In both cases you have surmised correctly.”