BOOK III

BASIL'S PLOT AND "MRS. BAL"

I

Will the time come, I wonder, when I can calmly "work up" these things

into a plot? If so, I foresee that I shall have to toss a coin to decide

on the casting of my own part in the story. Heads, I am hero; tails, I

am villain. But it has always been a theory of mine that ninety-nine out

of a hundred novels are unjust toward some of their principal

characters. Each (alleged) villain ought to have his motives and actions

explained from his own point of view, not according to that of the (also

alleged) hero and heroine whom he possibly tries (with success or

failure) to separate. If this were done in books, villains _qua_

villains would practically cease to exist; for it seems to me, in my

experience of life as a man and a writer, that no normal, healthy

villain is a villain in his own eyes. To understand all is to pardon

all; and in analyzing his motives in order to justify himself to

himself, he sees from every point of vantage, he knows how necessary

certain actions are which appear evil to the limited view of the hero

and heroine. They see him always obliquely, in profile; therefore they

are prejudiced. And what is doubly unfair to the poor villain, the

author of the book sympathizes with the others from first to last;

whereas, if the villain were allowed to explain himself in his own way,

not the author's, he would stand in the centre of the picture. Not being

prejudiced against himself, he would have a chance of appealing to the

readers' sense of justice.

Unfortunately for me, I have a way of seeing two sides of a question at

once, even when my own interests and those of another are violently

opposed. This is a kind of moral colour-blindness; for to be

colour-blind means merely that your eyes give you an impression of red

and green at the same tune, so that you can with difficulty tell which

is which. Both kinds of colour-blindness, moral and physical, handicap

you for success in life. On the whole, I think the moral sort is the

more inconvenient of the two. If you saw nobody's motives but your own,

you would be able honestly to detest your enemy and work against him.

You would then be happy and successful, because of your complete

self-confidence. It is seeing the enemy's point of view, and

sympathizing in spite of yourself with him, which upsets you.

That has been my state of mind ever since I was a small and

over-sensitive kid who wouldn't watch a terrier worry a rat because

something made me put myself at once in the rat's place. Wiser boys

called me a milksop and various other names, which I furiously resented

yet inwardly recognized as just. Also they kicked me at times, and

bashed me on the nose. I did my best in wild tempests of rage to kick

and bash them in return, and now and then I gave them back as good or

better than I had from them. But if I saw their blood flow, that same

ridiculous Something which went out to the rat sickened within me, and

was sorry.

I understand myself rather well, when I'm not in the grip of emotion;

but at present my eyes are blinded. I feel so intensely for myself and

for my sister that I'm not sure whether I act as I do more for her sake

or my own. Probably, however, it is for my own. And, curiously enough, I

dimly see past this brain-storm and heart-storm to some day of calmer

weather when it may still be possible to make use of myself and her,

and--the others, as "material." I don't know if I shall do this, yet it

may happen; and sometimes, even now, these disturbing incidents take

form in my mind as scenes for a future book. I suppose this shows that

the writer in me stands in front of the man. Some day I shall see myself

clearly again one way or the other.

It was going to be a pleasant little story, this Scotch romance Aline

and I had planned. I knew all the people in it intimately, and was in a

hurry to pick the lock of their prison with my pen, for they were

impatient to get out and begin to live and move. I thought Aline was

almost as much interested, though she never gets into such wild

enthusiasm over a new book that she can hardly wait to write it. She's

too well-balanced, and has too many outside interests, as a very pretty

and popular young woman should have; whereas, since the joy of writing

saved my life, it has always been first with me--until the other day.

With Aline, the mischief began on shipboard--or perhaps a little before,

though I realized then for the first time what was happening.

I have great faith in Aline's charm. I've seen several clever and

important men go down before it; but somehow I felt doubtful about

Somerled. If Aline has a lack--I may admit it here--it is temperament.

Possibly I have a touch of what she misses. And until I began to write,

I often wished to be without it. Anyhow, I can see that, sweet and

delightful as she is, a man of temperament might in exalted moments find

a note flat in the music of companionship.

Somerled has, I should think, spent at least ten years in trying to bury

his temperament under layers of hard common sense. But all the time it

was there, like boiling hot lava under a cold crust; and when Aline told

me how he valued their friendship, I wondered whether she were right,

and just how deeply his admiration of her was rooted in his heart. I

wondered if she were the type of woman he would want, not only for a

friend, but by and by for his wife; and caring for Aline as I do, I

worried about her affairs a good deal, apart from the influence they

were likely to have on the book. Still, I confess I thought as much

about the people in the story I had in mind as I did of my sister--if

not more, at that time.

Then, the night Aline and I had our big talk about Somerled, the Girl

came. And that was the end of the book for me too.

If some time I grow callous enough to write her into a romance (she'd

fit into nothing else), I doubt if I could make clear the extraordinary

and instantaneous effect of her on all those she approaches.

It isn't only her looks, though she's beautiful, as some blithe sprite

met by chance in a forest. It isn't only her youth, for she is too

absurdly young. A girl, to be taken seriously by a grown man, should be

at least one-and-twenty. She is, I believe, on the lilied edge of

eighteen. Ridiculous! Yet where she is, other women, also beautiful and

also young, are dimmed like candles that have burned all night when a

window is flung open in the face of sunrise. Something in her eyes, her

smile, the turn of her head, the light on her lashes and the shadow

under them, the way she catches in her breath when she laughs and looks

at you, the curl of her hair and the colour and fragrance of it, call to

the deeps in a man. I defy any man to resist her completely. I have

watched men in the street as I walked with her, or in hotel dining-rooms

as she came in. Be they old or young, weak or strong, grave or gay,

intelligent or dull, at sight of her the same pagan light of romance

springs into their eyes. Mysterious and irresistible as the lure of the

Pied Piper is the lure of this child who knows nothing of her own power.

She is a true daughter of Nature, but--she is also the daughter of Mrs.

Bal.

Can Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald have been such a one when she was

eighteen? No, in spite of the haunting, almost impish likeness, I'm sure

she cannot. But I think Somerled wonders, and that now and then the

relationship and the resemblance creep between him and his instinctive

perception of truth in the girl.

She came to us with Somerled on the night of our first sight of her,

leading him as Una might have led her lion.

It was a blow to Aline, a blow over the heart, and I felt it for her on

mine. She managed her affairs badly next day, but I didn't blame her. I

couldn't. Somerled and I had already lost our heads.

I scarcely believe Somerled was in love with the girl then; perhaps he

isn't even now. He merely felt the call of youth, and a strange beauty

and a stranger vitality. His life needed this call. It waked up the

sleeping youth in his own heart. It set his old enthusiasms singing like

birds uncaged. It made him want to be again all the things he had

decided not to be. It brought back beliefs in realities that he had

feared were illusions. In other words, it freed the temperamental artist

and dreamer from the spoilt and successful millionaire. But he could

have let the bright vision go, perhaps, and have been pleasantly

contented later to remember it, if--it hadn't been for Aline. Because

she wanted to part them and make him forget the girl's existence, she

took the very way to throw them together. Then, when she had done her

worst, she turned to _me_ for help.

I was horribly sorry for her, and the keen hurt of my sympathy made me

fear for myself. The girl had got hold of me too, of course. When I

found that she was going away from us with Somerled, I felt physically

sick with the sense of loss. It was as if, with Barrie gone, everything

was gone. I knew that poor Aline must be suffering exactly the same dumb

tortures in regard to Somerled, whom she had thought so nearly hers. And

that is why, when she begged me to help--somehow, anyhow--I wasn't sure

whether I promised to please her or myself.

I was able to do very little toward keeping the promise, either way,

until Edinburgh. It was there, really, that Aline and I first seriously

took up the rôle of villains--if we are villains. But two persons less

well cut out by Nature for such parts can hardly exist. We want to be

good and happy, and we want each other to be happy, and all those whom

we love to be happy; but we want them to be happy with us and through

us. This is where Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald comes into the plot. Without

her, nothing could have happened as it is happening.

I shall never forget that first scene between the girl and her mother. I

knew it would not be recorded in that poor little "book" of Barrie's,

which every day she was writing and hiding. I thought that the book,

which had no doubt been leading up to this scene, would probably stop

short at the last sentence breathing hope of it.

Not that I have seen what she wrote. It was I who put the idea of

writing into her head; but, though she didn't guess it, that was only

done to give myself the right of Mentor when I still supposed we should

all start gayly off together for Edinburgh from Carlisle. I suggested

that she and I should "collaborate." Ha, ha! I believe "ha, _ha_," by

the way, is an ejaculation confined entirely to thwarted villains in

stageland; but if I am a villain, I'm not thwarted yet.

Aline's attack of temper, which upset everything, upset that scheme

among the rest; but it seems the impulse I gave, pushed Barrie on to

achieve something literary. Only, she steadily refused to let me see a

line she wrote. The sole pleasure I got out of her taking my advice was

in Somerled's face when I teased the girl about her "work." If he had

been teaching her to sketch and paint I should have felt the same.

He is afraid of himself, because she has captured his thoughts; and

afraid of her, because she's Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald's daughter. When

he sees her followed by a trail of young men, like a bright comet with a

tail it's been busily collecting in a journey through space, he asks

himself whether this is going to be Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald over

again? He wonders if he dare believe in the kindness of Barrie's smiles

for him, or whether his portion is no better than those she deals out

gayly to the rest of us. At least, this is as I judge him, though from

the first we've exchanged no confidences on the subject of "Mrs. Bal" or

Barrie her daughter.

Somerled knew Mrs. Bal in America. I never made her acquaintance, but I

saw her act in Montreal every night of her engagement there. I couldn't

keep away--yet I didn't want to meet her. I thought perhaps if I did I

should be ass enough to fall in love. That is the truth. A good many

fellows of my acquaintance, and others I'd heard of, had fallen in love,

and had been flirted with till the lady was sick and tired of them.

After that they were very sorry for themselves. I never heard anything

else against Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald, and I don't believe there's

anything worse to hear, than that she's a spoiled, flattered, selfish,

and self-centred beauty, who expects every man to fall down before her,

and generally gets what she expects.

None of us talked much to Barrie about her mother, though at first she

was continually bringing up the subject. We knew she thought of it

constantly: that beneath all her joy in escape from bondage, in

motoring, and in her adventures in beautiful, historic scenes, there was

always that undertone--"When I meet my mother." And we too felt the

strain of suspense, though in a different way--at least, Somerled and I

felt it. I could see it often in the peculiar darkening of his face when

anything happened to suggest the idea of the mother in the background.

As for Aline, I suppose it was but natural her only interest in Mrs. Bal

should be, "How will her reception of the girl affect me, if at all?"

Aline's arranging to pick up the Vannecks at Dumfries gave her the

excuse she's been longing for ever since the quarrel, to get me into

Somerled's car, though she didn't wish to seem as if she were forcing

herself upon him. Perhaps he might have found some way of shuffling out

of it, but in St. Michael's churchyard at Dumfries she asked if he

didn't think the "little romance a very pretty one?" He inquired what

she meant. She appeared amused at his denseness--"so like a man!"--and

said, "Why, what could I mean except dear Basil and little Barrie? I

didn't know _any one_ could help seeing! But don't say anything, please.

It might nip the orange-blossoms in the bud."

She told me this afterward, because I had to know if I were to "live up

to it." And I'm afraid by that time I was ready to live up to it,

whatever the consequences might be. That is enough to explain why

Somerled without hesitation invited me to migrate into his car when

Aline had filled up Blunderbore with a party of three guests. He might

even then have kept Barrie in her place beside him, or have appointed me

to it; but that wouldn't have been Somerled as I see him, saying to

himself, "Let them have each other's society, since that's what they

want. I don't know what _I_ want, or whether it's best for her or me

that I should want anything."

Right or wrong about his state of mind as I may be whatever it was, he

surrendered to me with an air of grave kindness which put on again the

several years he had thrown off in the last week. (Yes, it was only a

week that had made these changes for all of us!) Sitting with Barrie and

her good friend Mrs. James (great character, that little woman: must use

her in a book sooner or later), I knew just how passionately the girl

was looking forward to the "surprise" meeting with her mother. My nerves

were as tense as hers--even more tense, it may be, for I was like one

behind the scenes, knowing what she did not know. I felt so sure the

"surprise" was going to turn out differently from what she pictured that

I had a sense of guilt whenever I saw her smiling dreamily. I was

continually wondering what would happen, and what she would do when it

did happen. And I had the impression that Somerled constantly brooded

over the same subject, asking himself the same questions. The happier

the girl was, the sorrier we both were for her, silently, without

telling each other, and the more we wished to save her from any

suffering to come. I knew that I could read so far into Somerled's

thoughts, where they kept to the same road as mine; but I doubt if he

were conscious of any fellow-feeling with me. I was to him only the most

deeply infatuated and the most seriously in earnest of Barrie

MacDonald's rapidly accumulating string of ridiculous young men.

Sympathy and curiosity, tossed together in an indistinguishable mass,

made a confused omelette of my emotions as we spun along that lovely

wooded road past Galashiels and into Edinburgh. I wanted to witness the

first meeting of mother and daughter, yet I dreaded it. I didn't see how

I could decently contrive to be "on" in that scene, yet I felt it would

be too bad to be true that it should be enacted in my absence--almost as

monstrous as that the world should be able to get on with me out of it.

It was Somerled, of course, who settled that his Gray Dragon (Barrie's

name for the car) should arrive at Edinburgh on Sunday morning instead

of Monday. He didn't trouble himself with intricate explanations, merely

remarking that a Scotch Sunday was a bad day for travellers, apart from

their religious conventions. If they hadn't any, others had; and those

others were the very ones with power to make backsliders uncomfortable.

They could close abbeys and museums, and they could shut the doors of

inns in hungry faces at meal-times. "Besides," he finished, without a

smile, "I took over the job of guardian _pro tem_ from Barrie's

grandmother, and I'm sure Mrs. MacDonald would wish her granddaughter to

go to church on Sunday."

Barrie opened her eyes at this speech. Probably she'd never heard any

talk of theology from Somerled, and was puzzled by his sudden interest

in her spiritual decorum. I guessed that he wanted to give her the

brilliant spectacle at St. Giles as a surprise on his last day of

guardianship, but it occurred to me also that there might be other

reasons in his mind for cutting short the tour. He might be tired of me

as a guest thrust upon him. He might be sick of the American boys, and

the soldier, Barrie's latest collected specimen (the Douglas youth also

is travelling _en automobile_), or he might have reflected that it would

be well to find out in advance where Mrs. Bal meant to pass her

Edinburgh week. He must have realized that such a spoiled pet of society

was as likely to visit admiring friends as to put up at a hotel.

We left Melrose a little before eight o'clock, promising Aline and the

Vannecks (who hate getting up early) to engage rooms for them at the

Caledonian Hotel. We had forty-six miles before us, but the Gray Dragon

bolts a mile as a dog bolts an oyster, and as it was too early for many

other dragons of his kind to be on the march, Somerled did a little

discreet scorching through the lovely green and gold and purple

landscape, past Galashiels, Stow, and Heriot. This haste--which didn't

mean less speed--gave us time for a detour of a few miles to Rosslyn

Chapel, which it would have been a shame to miss.

I wish I knew more about architecture! I thought Rosslyn a gem, and

should have described it as a thing of unique perfection; but Somerled,

who knows all about such things, said no, it was far from right

artistically, though beautiful in spite of faults. My description would

briefly be: whole chapel like great carved jewel-casket for a queen;

ornamentation simply dazzling in intricacy and delicate detail;

extraordinary pale rose-flush in shadow on stone pillars, which have the

rich cream tints of carved ivory. No two alike: Spanish spirit visible

here. Reminded me of detail in Burgos Cathedral. Nice story about the

Prentice's Pillar. I looked it up when I found we were going to Rosslyn,

and told it to Barrie before Somerled had a chance to open his mouth.

Showed her the sculptured head of presumptuous man who dared finish the

column according to design of his own, while this master was

unsuspectingly studying up ideas for it in Rome. She thought the pillar

more beautiful than the "horrid master's" work, and almost cried to hear

that the prentice had died from the mallet-stroke of the jealous

avenger. Barrie with tears in her eyes is a danger to beholders. She was

particularly adorable just then, as her hair was wet with rain (our

first rain) and curled on her forehead in little tendrils. This rain, by

the way, came on worse later, and was perhaps the original, if indirect,

cause of what might be called our villainhood--Aline's and mine.

We were pretty well drenched getting from Dragon to Chapel and from

Chapel to Dragon, though the distance was nothing, but the downpour

severe. Then, we three passengers were safely housed in the closed car

while Somerled and Vedder the chauffeur had the full benefit of the

storm. They were protected by a glass screen, but the waterspouts seemed

to find them out, and Mrs. James and Barrie were so sorry for the two

men that I felt a "luxurious slave" to cringe in shelter while others

soaked.

Vedder, by the way, interests me as a type. I thought Aline and I had

used up nearly all possible types of chauffeurs, but he's a new one, and

may prove valuable in case of future need. I understand that he was

distinguished in his remote past as a prize-fighter, then as a Cockney

coachman in London. Somerled rescued him from something or

other--prison, probably, judging by the shape of his nose (think it must

have been broken and mended in absent-minded moment by amateur) and the

look he gives me occasionally from corner of eye--like vicious horse

cowed by owner and dangerous to strangers. Barrie and Mrs. James think

him such a "quiet, nice man." It is not their business to judge

character, luckily for their illusions. My opinion of Vedder--who looks

exactly like the frog footman in Tenniel's illustrations of "Alice in

Wonderland"--is that he's a smouldering volcano. He never speaks unless

absolutely necessary, then uses as few words as possible, but his

thoughts seethe in language unfit for publication except where his

worshipped master is concerned. He also, in his way, is a victim of

Barrie MacDonald. He has mentally apportioned her to Somerled, as spoil

of battle. His vicious wall-eyes regard with distrust and hatred other

male creatures who dare to contend for the prize. If he could arrange an

accident to the Dragon without injuring it (an idol only second in his

heart to Somerled) or any one under its wing, except me and himself, I

feel sure he would risk his own bones for the sake of cracking mine. As

for my sister, he does not approve of her. In looking Aline-ward, his

face seems to become perfectly flat, like a slab of stone, features

almost disappearing, except his slit of a mouth. "Nice, quiet man! So

contented with his uncomfortable perch at his master's feet!" But--when

the slightest mishap befalls the Dragon, and his services are needed as

doctor or surgeon, he lets bottled-up steam escape. Without a word, he

sets to work like a demon, accomplishing what he has to do in about half

the time our best chauffeurs have taken. I should not be surprised at

any moment to see ears, eyes, and nose emit lambent flames. Chauffeurs

are a strange race, and Vedder is the strangest of the lot.

Drawing near Edinburgh, and encountering the first tram lines, it was

pretty to watch Barrie's excitement. To understand, one had to remember

that this was by far the biggest town the child had ever seen, so that

even the outskirts impressed her as something stupendous.

As if for her pleasure, the rain stopped. "The nice, quiet man"

uncovered us pampered passengers, and as we went on again, Edinburgh the

beautiful, lying before us like a shadowy blue and purple map, began to

take shape as a city of spires and monuments and gardens, and reveal its

unique marvels. At this moment, I had my uses. Though it was my first

sight of the Athens of Great Britain, I've fagged it all up so

faithfully for the book that I know what everything is and what most

things mean. I ventured to point out the Salisbury Crags, and Arthur's

Seat watching over the town and Castle like a guardian lion. It was all

very well for Barrie to come to Edinburgh to find her mother, but I

didn't want her to miss realizing that she was entering perhaps the most

beautiful city in the world, and one of the most historic, after Rome. I

knew if I didn't give her this impression Somerled would, and wickedly I

wished her to be primed by me before he got his chance. The only trouble

was that I hadn't enough time to make her see fully all the glorious

contrasts which ought to strike the mind at first sight of Edinburgh,

where Yesterday and To-day gaze at and criticise each other across a

gulf material and imaginary. Even though Somerled brought the Dragon

down to snail's pace, I couldn't do the subject justice, with my best

eloquence snatched at random from notebooks. Mrs. James would keep

interrupting with quotations from "the doctor's" famous unfinished MSS.

I would almost have preferred the silent Vedder as a chaperon. But there

was some comfort in the certainty that Somerled was envying me the place

to which I'd been appointed by himself. As he was driving through

traffic, and couldn't glance round, he was unable to see how Barrie's

eyes wandered from the points I indicated to others which she selected

for herself.

My dramatic announcement, that where now rises the solid gray mass of

old Edinburgh once crouched the wattled houses of the first inhabitants,

scarcely caught her attention. She would gaze dreamily at Arthur's Seat,

because Mrs. James had just unfolded a meretricious legend to the effect

that King Arthur used to sit there and watch his troops. And the dark

crag of the Castle, with its thousand years of history, its crowning

walls and towers, its chasms of purple shadow, riveted her fancy when I

would have discoursed on the modern charm of Princes Street--that "half

a street" so much more splendid than any whole street ever planned.

"The doctor told me, I remember," said Mrs. James, "that at the end of

the eighteenth century, when they wanted to build the new Edinburgh,

they had to bribe people by giving them large tracts of land in order to

make them move out of the old town, or they wouldn't budge. Sometimes a

quarter of what they presented to one man in those days is worth a

hundred thousand pounds now."

In spite of the girl's excited admiration of the goddess-town, her first

question on getting out of the car was to Somerled about her mother. "I

think, if she stops at a hotel, she's likely to choose this one," he

said. "That's why I've brought you here."

"Thank you," she answered. "Thank you for everything." Then it was my

turn to envy him.

She was pale, her face drained of colour, and extraordinarily spiritual

as she stood in the big hall, waiting to hear what Somerled would be

told at the desk. He came back soon, and announced that Mrs. Ballantree

MacDonald had engaged a suite at this hotel, but it was not known

whether she would arrive that night or on Monday morning.

"Meanwhile, I've taken a room for you adjoining Mrs. James, as usual,"

Somerled said. "When your mother arrives and you have met, she can make

any new arrangement for you she chooses."

"And you--will go on--with the others?" asked Barrie, catching her

breath in that engaging way she has when she is excited and trying to

control emotion.

"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 passing along as we pass 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 façade.

"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."

She regarded me with sudden suspicion. "Thank you very much," she

replied primly. "I'll take your advice and have it like that in my

story, if I ever write it. What a _wonderful_ old street this is! It's

full of ghosts of kings and queens, and noblemen and great ladies, and

soldiers and robbers, every one of them more important than the people

we see."

I couldn't tempt her back to the dangerous subject and soon I prudently

ceased to try. But she had given me what I've heard described as a

"nasty jar." Barrie MacDonald wouldn't have appealed to Basil Norman for

a definition of love if she'd thought of him as a man and not a brother!

The side of me nearest my heart hated Somerled, marching on ahead,

looking singularly attractive and gallant, much too interesting for a

mere millionaire. And the side of me which has telephonic communication

with my brain liked and approved of him, understanding how and why his

personality made a strong appeal to most women. "You've had pretty well

everything you've asked life to give you so far," I said to his back,

"but this girl isn't your kind of girl. It's my sister you ought to

want."

Suddenly, as we drew near to the crowned church of St. Giles--the old

High Kirk--there came to our ears the skirling of pipes. Barrie started

and stopped. Somerled glanced round quickly, his eyes keen. Would she

prove her Highland blood? Would her heart beat for the pipes? That was

the question in his look.

The girl was taken by surprise. We others knew what we had come for, and

what to expect. She had no idea, except that she was being conducted

decently to church.

At the first wail of the pipes the blood of her ancestors sprang to her

face. She clasped her hands together, listening in silence to the

barbaric music, her lips apart, her eyes aglow. And all this for the

call of the pipes! Not yet had she caught her first glimpse of the

pipers; but an instant later the tall figures came swinging proudly into

sight, plaids swaying like tartan tassels, kilts moving with that

wave-about-to-break rhythm given to their garments only by inspired

pipers.

Even I felt a thrill as if each nerve in my body were a string drawn

suddenly taut, but I was gloomily conscious that the Celtic souls of

Somerled and Barrie felt more than I was capable of feeling, a

mysterious something which drew the two together at this instant.

Physically, I stood between them, but I knew that my body was no

obstacle to the lightning flash between their spirits.

Not a word said one of us as the goodly company of soldiers swept by in

a rich-coloured cloud of their own music. But when all had disappeared

into the church, Somerled and Barrie looked at each other. His eyes

praised her for a braw and bonnie lassie who had responded in fine style

to her first-heard pipes, her first-seen kilt; yet his lips had nothing

to say but, "Well, what do you think of them?"

"Think?" echoed Barrie. "I think it's perfectly unbelievable how any

girl can ever marry a man who isn't a Highlander and has no right to the

kilt!"

There was one for Somerled and one against me; but it only got my blood

up. Many a girl says a certain thing, and does another when her time

comes.

"If I were rich," she went on, "I'd live in a castle in the Highlands,

and I'd have it _full_, simply _swarming_, with pipers, playing me awake

in the morning and to sleep at night."

"I should like you to see your own castle of Dunelin at Dhrum. There are

plenty of pipers there. I've kept them all on, meaning them to play for

me some day," said Somerled, who had just then forgotten, I think, the

existence of myself and Mrs. James, and failed to observe that in the

distance all Miss Barribel MacDonald's missing young men were

assembling, as if to the call of the blood--the soldier from Carlisle,

who had collected a friend, and the American contingent of four.

"My own castle?" Barrie repeated.

"You know what I mean. It would be yours if you'd been a boy. As you

aren't----"

"It's yours!" laughed she.

"Not by right of blood. Only by right of money."

"Well, that's the sovereign right," she insisted, pleased with her own

pun.

Then the victims of our miniature Circe arrived in the foreground, shook

hands, bandied jokes, and became the most prominent figures in the

picture. For the first time I was glad to see them, nor did I bear the

youths ill-will for separating me from our beneficent enchantress in the

stately church with historic banners. They had separated her from

Somerled as well.

After service was over, we stopped only for a look at the stones which

mark in the pavement the old Heart of Midlothian, and then hurried back

to the hotel, escaping the Americans, but clung to by Douglas and his

cousin, another Douglas, who hospitably bade us all to visit him at all

his houses. He mentioned several, dotted about in various parts of the

country; but when he heard that Miss MacDonald was retiring from the

party in a day or two, he ceased to press the general invitation.

There was news of Mrs. Bal at the Caledonian. A maid had arrived who

thought that her mistress would not follow until the evening: Somerled

asked Barrie, therefore--rather wistfully, I thought--if she would care

to go out again in the afternoon. "It will make the time pass for you,"

he added. I sympathized with him against my will. It was to be his last

day of "guardianship," yet he was generous enough to invite me; and not

only that, but to let me sit in the car with Barrie and Mrs. James, on

the way to Arthur's Seat. After this effort, however, human nature had

its way, and he kept her to himself for the rest of the afternoon. It

was the first time he had done this since I fastened myself upon the

party. To-day, it was evidently by deliberate intention, not accident.

It was as if he said to himself, "These last hours shall be mine." And I

wondered if indeed he actually meant them to be last hours. For my part,

I certainly meant nothing of the sort. Mrs. Bal, or no Mrs. Bal, Aline

or no Aline, Book or no Book, I didn't intend to walk out of Barrie's

life without trying to win a foothold in it for the future.

If I had an opinion on such matters, I should have said, up to a week

ago, that I didn't approve of marriage for a girl under twenty, as she

couldn't possibly know her own mind; but Barrie is the kind of exception

to prove any rule. She ought to have a man to take care of her.

Before five we started back, for Mrs. James thought Barrie needed a nap.

It appeared that she hadn't slept the night before, owing to the

excitement of suspense; and now "her eyes must be bright for their first

look at her mother."

Drawn up at the pavement in front of the hotel as we slowed down was a

big blue car, and another smaller one close behind, both of the same

make, and evidently belonging to the same people. We had to choose

between waiting for them to disgorge passengers and unload luggage, or

get out at a distance from the entrance. We took the latter course, but

at the hotel door Barrie stopped us. She wore no veil; and though it was

to Somerled, not me, she spoke, I could see that her face was pale, her

eyes dilated.

"Do you think that can be my mother arriving?" she asked in a low voice.

He looked back at the lady who, at this instant, was springing from the

blue car to the pavement, her hand in that of a man who offered

unnecessary help. It was a tall figure in a long cloak the colour of a

duck's egg, and it gave the effect of willowy slimness despite the

disguising mantle. A close-fitting toque of greenish grayish blue

covered the small head, and the face was practically invisible behind a

thick veil of the same mystic colour; but as the lady turned her long

throat for a look at the other car, there was a glimpse of banded red

hair under the toque, and a curl or two at the nape of the neck.

The two women in the smaller car also had red hair. They were not

veiled, and their neat black hats and jackets somehow advertised them

unmistakably as ladies' maids. Neither was pretty, in spite of her

flaming crown of glory; and neither was young.

The remembrance of an "interview" with Mrs. Bal which I had read in some

paper flashed back to my mind. She had told the reporter that "only

red-haired servants could understand the moods of a red-haired

mistress," and that, after disastrous experiences with "dull creatures

who had no temperament themselves, and couldn't live with any one who

had," she decided to engage only red-haired maids.

Perhaps Somerled knew of this idiosyncrasy, or else he recognized the

tall form in spite of its wrappings, for he said, "Yes, I think very

likely it is your mother, Barrie. But we can't be sure; and in any case

I strongly advise you not to try and speak to her here in the street."

"Oh, I won't till she gets her veil off," said Barrie breathlessly, "but

I must wait and see her come into the hall. I----"

Somerled gently but firmly drew the girl into the hotel. Mrs. James and

I followed. Evidently Somerled wanted to persuade Barrie that it would

be better to keep out of the lady's way as she entered, and meet later,

if indeed this were Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald; but the girl seemed

hardly to hear his murmured arguments. She did yield far enough to let

him lead her a little aside, but she took up her stand again where she

could see the blue figure enter. She did not speak, or insist upon her

own way, yet I think it would have been impossible to move her without

using brute force. Somerled realized that nothing was to be done with

the child for the moment, and accordingly did nothing, except to stand

beside her. Mrs. James and I took our places mechanically on the girl's

other side, though no word passed between us.

Never had I seen Barrie so beautiful. Though a brilliant colour burned

on her cheeks, she looked curiously spiritual. Her lovely body seemed a

crystal lamp through which shone the light of an eager soul.

A minute of this silent suspense, and the lady in the blue-gray cloak

came in, followed by the two red-haired maids carrying such valued

possessions as no hotel porter must be allowed to touch: little

handbags, gold monogrammed; a long coat of blue Russian fox;

silk-covered air cushions, and delicately bound books. Behind came

employes of the hotel, bearing rugs and other luggage; but the big man

who had helped the lady from the car did not appear. We had seen his

back only, yet the impression lingered in my mind that he was no

servant, but a gentleman, a personage of worldly as well as physical

magnitude.

The lady went toward the desk, then paused, and with an imperious and

impatient little gesture directed one of her maids to untie her thick

blue veil. The knot was loosened with a skilful touch, and the face of

Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald was revealed. For a moment or two we saw it

only in profile, as she talked with the people at the desk, and bade the

elder of her two women write in the visitors' book. Then, as she turned

away to go to the lift, we were favoured with the full blaze of her

celebrated beauty.

It is three years since I saw her last, in America, but she has not

changed, unless to look younger. She might not be a day over

twenty-five, and her figure is as slender, as spirited, and as graceful

as a girl's. She advanced more or less in our direction, though without

seeing us, and her walk was peculiarly attractive--slightly

self-conscious and suggestive of the actress, perhaps, but light as a

smoke wreath. If she makes up off the stage, she is so skilful that she

beats Nature at Nature's own game. Her complexion, with the gray-blue

veil flowing in folds on either side her face, looked pearly, and the

rippling lines of her red hair glittered like new copper. It was

impossible she should not know that every one in the big hall was gazing

at her; but such was her self-control, gained in long experience as a

beauty and popular favourite, that she seemed not to see any one. Hers

was not a morose remoteness, however. That might have offended admirers

and kept money out of the theatre. It was the radiant unawareness of a

passing sunbeam.

A few more seconds and this charming figure, framed in floating clouds

of chiffon, would have reached the door of the lift, to be wafted out of

sight like a pantomime fairy. But Barrie could no longer be held within

bounds, for the great moment of her life had come. She darted away from

us, her figure as tall, more youthful, more willowy, and more charming

than the other, though singularly like in movement and in outline. The

resemblance between the beautiful woman and the beautiful girl produced

the effect of contrast, and ruthlessly dug a chasm of years between

them. Suddenly, as they stood face to face, Mrs. Bal--who had been young

as morning--reached the rich maturity of summer noon.

The thing Somerled would have prevented had happened; but the reins were

out of his hands, and it would do more harm than good to snatch at them.

None of us moved, but we were nearer than any one else to the mother and

daughter, near enough to hear every word they said to each other.

"Oh, mother, it's I--your daughter Barrie, come to find you," the girl

faltered. "You know--Barribel. You named me. I've run away from

Grandma----"

"My goodness--_gracious_!" gasped Mrs. Bal, her brown eyes immense. In

her groping bewilderment, her blank amaze, she looked younger again, her

rather full face very round, almost childish, her dimples deepening in

the peachy flush of her cheeks. She stared at Barrie as if the girl were

a doll come alive--an extremely complicated, elaborate, embarrassing

doll, copied from herself and let loose upon the world. And Barrie did

not take her eyes from the beautiful, surprised face for an instant. In

her wistful suspense she scarcely breathed. "Oh, do love me--do be glad

to see me!" her soul implored through its wide-open windows.

The silence, falling after Mrs. Bal's astonished gasp, lasted but an

instant, though it seemed long to us who waited. To others at a

distance, others who knew nothing of the story, whose sight and hearing

were not morbidly sharpened, the little scene probably meant no more

than a surprise meeting between the well-known actress and a very pretty

girl enough like her to be a sister. But to us who did know the

story--and something of Mrs. Bal--the pause was like the pause in court

while the jury is absent.

Mrs. Bal was thinking, observing, making up her mind. Suddenly she broke

out laughing--a nervous, yet impish laugh, and seized the girl by both

hands. At the same time she bent forward--not down, for Barrie is as

tall as she--kissed the girl on both cheeks, and whispered something.

It was a brief whisper. She could have said no more than half a dozen

words, but they stupefied Barrie. She threw back her head, almost as if

to avoid a blow. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she pressed her lips

together in a spasmodic effort at self-control. The bright rose-red of

excitement was drained from her face; but she did not draw away from her

mother, who still held the girl's hands. All she did was to turn her

head with a bird-like quickness and fling one glance at Somerled.

I don't know whether or not she meant it as a call. Probably she didn't

herself know what she meant. Only, she was in need of help, of comfort,

and involuntarily turned to the strongest, most dependable personality

in her small world. I would have given all my faculty as a writer--my

dearest possession--to have been in Somerled's place--to have had her

appealing to me while her air-castle crumbled.

He went to her at once, and spoke to Mrs. Bal, who had not seen him till

that instant. She blushed slightly at sight of him, I noticed; and I

wondered whether she had flirted, or tried to flirt, in the past with

the artist-millionaire. It was impossible to guess whether she were

pleased or displeased, but evidently his appearance on the scene was

ruffling in one way or another to the lady's emotions. "This is a

surprise!" I heard her say, in a softer, fuller tone than she had had

time to put into her first sharp exclamation at sight of Barrie.

Then both voices dropped. The two talked together while the girl stood

by in silence, pale and expectant, depending on Somerled. Mrs. Bal said

something which made Somerled laugh--one of his cynical laughs, such as

I hadn't heard from him lately. Not once had he looked at Barrie. All

his attention was for the mother. She asked a question. Answering it, he

indicated Mrs. James and me.

"Oh, please introduce them!" Mrs. Bal commanded pleasantly.

This was a signal for us to approach.

"Mr. Basil Norman," she said. "You are the author, of course. How nice

to meet you! Of course I read your books. And your sister who

collaborates--where is she?"

"I don't know yet whether she's arrived or not," I explained. "I meant

to ask at the desk----"

"I want to know her. Please tell her so. And this is Mrs. James. Why,

yes, of course! I remember you--in the days of my captivity." She

laughed a childlike, impish laugh. (Barrie has one rather like it, but

more spontaneous, less effective.) "You haven't changed."

"Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. MacDonald," exclaimed the little woman,

radiant with pleasure--for I've found out that her two great desires are

to keep her youthful looks, and to be intellectually worthy of the

vanished doctor. "I'm sure _you_ are not in the _least_ altered, though

it must be seventeen years----"

"Oh, my dear Mrs. James, don't--_please_ don't!" cried Mrs. Bal,

laughing and dimpling, and holding up both gloved hands in mock prayer.

"Don't mention the number of years. This is getting to be simply awful.

Shock after shock!" She laughed again, glancing roguishly at Barrie. "I

want you all to come to my sitting-room--this very minute--to hold a

council of war. It's most necessary. You dear, pretty child"--this

adorably to her daughter--"how much more mischief have you done already?

How many people have you let into the ghastly secret?"

Barrie hung her head, and looked down. She must have known that

sympathetic eyes were on her, and have wished to avoid them. "There's

only Mrs. West and--and--I suppose her friends the Vannecks--and Mr.

Douglas--a Lieutenant Douglas----"

"Horror! Their name is legion. What a scrape. Well, I must appeal to

their mercy. Please come up with me, everybody, and we'll talk it over

and see what's to be done. There isn't a moment to lose."

By this time I began to guess what she was driving at, though the dazed

expression of Mrs. James told me that she was still in the dark.

We got into the lift and were shot up to the next floor, nothing being

said on the way except a conventional word or two about the motoring

weather. "I came in a friend's car--I'll tell you all about it," Mrs.

Bal added as she led the way to her rooms.

The two maids had arrived on the scene already. Doors were open; luggage

was being taken in under the direction of the red-haired ones; but in

the large sitting-room there was no sign of confusion. Quantities of

flowers adorned it, in tall glass vases and gilded baskets tied with

ribbons. Signed photographs of royalties and generals and judges, the

latest aviators and successful explorers, all in monogrammed silver

frames, were scattered on mantel and tables and piano-top. There were

plump cushions of old brocade on the several sofas and lounges. The

largest table had a strip of rare Persian embroidery laid across it, and

was graced rather than laden with novels, boxes of sweets, and silver

bonbonnières. Evidently the maid who had come in advance had had her

hands full!

"I must have pretty things to give me a home feeling. Touring would be

too horrid without that," she laughed. (Mrs. Bal laughs often in private

life; what clever woman with dimples does not?) "Now, sit down, and let

us discuss this desperate situation. But first--come here, Barribel. I

want to look at you."

Barrie came. Mrs. Bal caught the girl's hands, and held her out at arm's

length.

"You pretty creature!" she exclaimed. "Oh!" and she threw an appeal to

us. "To think I should be the mother of THAT! Isn't it simply appalling?

But I can't be, you know. I can't be her _mother_. Now _can_ I? I've

told her already--I had to decide in a flash. I admire her immensely,

and we're going to be fond of each other and the greatest chums. But we

must be _sisters_."

Then I knew what she had whispered to make Barrie start and blanch. She

had said, "I won't be your mother." And Barrie had turned involuntarily

to Somerled because she had felt herself unwanted and her heart was

breaking.

All this was preparing me for a career of villainy, though I must say in

self-defence that it was Aline who lit the match. "The woman tempted me,

and I did eat!"

"Come and sit by me, lovely doll," said Mrs. Bal, pulling the girl down

beside her on the most cushiony and comfortable sofa. "So you are the

baby! I haven't forgotten you. I've thought of you a _lot_--really a

lot. But you never seemed _mine_, you know. _They_ wouldn't let me feel

you belonged to me. They were so good! Of course I had to leave you

for--for them to take care of. They thought they knew everything about

babies. I dare say they were right. I _had_ to escape. I couldn't have

lived with them another day, in that awful house. But I've been oh, _so_

proper, and good, really. Even they could have hardly been shocked. And

I've hired three red-haired watch-dogs. But it isn't only myself I want

to talk about--it's you. I do think you're the prettiest thing I ever

saw--though I oughtn't to say so, perhaps, because I believe we're

alike. Aren't we, Somerled?"

"In some ways, not in others," dryly returned the gentleman addressed.

"Oh, I know the differences are in her favour--Diogenes! All the more

reason why I can't possibly own her for a daughter. My yearly profits

would go down a hundred per cent. And although she's perfectly

_darling_, and I'm going to love her--as a sister--she couldn't have

come to me at a worse moment."

"Oh--why?" pleaded Barrie, speaking for the first time.

"Because--you may as well hear this, all of you, since I've called you

to a council of war. I want you to realize"--and she gave each of us a

look in turn: a lovely, characteristic "Mrs. Bal" look--"that I'm on my

knees to you. I've thrown myself on your mercy. You've got to help me

out. The truth is"--she began taking off her gloves and looking down at

her own hands, her rings sparkling as the pink and white fingers were

bared--"the truth is, I'm a little--a tiny little bit--tired of acting.

I'd like to leave the stage in a blaze of glory while everybody wants me

and there's no one to take my place. There's only one trouble--I'm so

horribly extravagant. I always have been. I'm afraid I always shall be.

I make heaps of money, but I can't save. If I say good-bye to the

theatre, I shall want millions. I don't feel I can rub along on less. So

that means--I shall have to marry somebody else's millions, for I

haven't got the ghost of one of my own."

As she explained her position she looked deliberately past Somerled and

out at the window. This made me sure that a vague suspicion of mine was

founded on fact. Mrs. Bal had angled for Somerled, and he had been one

of her few failures. She couldn't be pleased at encountering him again

as her daughter's self-appointed guardian and champion. It seemed to me

that the situation complicated itself, to Somerled's disadvantage;

therefore--it might be--to the advantage of the next nearest man,

myself.

"There is some one," Mrs. Bal went on, with a slight but lessening

constraint, "who--rather likes me, and I rather like him--better than I

can remember liking anybody. He's got lots of money. His name is Morgan

Bennett. Somerled--you know him."

"Yes," said Somerled. "I thought his back looked familiar."

So the big fellow who helped Mrs. Bal out of the blue car (also big, in

proportion to the size of the owner and his fortune) was Morgan P.

Bennett of New York, the Tin Trust millionaire. Somerled's puny horde of

millions dwindle into humble insignificance beside Morgan Bennett's

pile. If Somerled has made two millions out of his mines and successful

speculations, and a few extra thousands out of his pictures, M. P.

Bennett has made twenty millions out of tin--and unlimited cheek. He is

so big that his pet name in Wall Street used to be "The Little Tin

Soldier."

"He has been--dangling lately," Mrs. Bal went on. "Oh, nothing settled!

I confess I wish it were. I mean to take him if he asks me, and I think

he will. You wouldn't believe it, but he's a shy man with women. I do

believe he's frightened to propose. He's bought a house in London, in my

favourite square. And now he's taken a shooting-lodge in

Forfarshire--such an amusing place: a huge round house with as many eyes

as in a peacock's tail, all staring cheerfully, and high chimneys

grouped together like bundles of asparagus. I've just been staying there

with his sister, Mrs. Payne, whom I believe he imported from America on

purpose to play gooseberry. You know--or perhaps you don't--I tried my

new play for the first time in Dundee, just one night, and it went

gorgeously. This house of his isn't far off, and I was motored back and

forth for rehearsals and so on, while the company stayed in town. I

simply fell in love with the place; and he's trying to buy it--to please

me, I _hope_. There's a round porter's lodge and a round garage: and the

round house stands on a round lawn with a round road running round it

like a belt, so that it all seems the centre of a round world with the

sun moving round it. He brought me from there to Edinburgh to-day, and

two of my maids in another car. He won't stop here in the same hotel

with me, of course, but he'll drop in now and then--naturally--and he's

taken his box at the theatre for the whole week. We must arrange this

sister business before he calls. I've confessed to him that I'm

twenty-nine, and it's perfectly true. I've been twenty-nine for several

years. But he'd hardly believe me so old. And what _should_ I do--I ask

you all--if a grown-up--oh, but an extremely grown-up--daughter suddenly

loomed over my horizon? Even if I put back her clock to fifteen instead

of--never mind!--I couldn't manage to be less than thirty-one, and that

with the greatest difficulty. Now you see how I am placed."

"Shall I go away and--and save you all the bother?" asked Barrie, in a

very small voice.

"Oh, no, no, dear child; nothing of the sort, of course," protested Mrs.

Bal, patting the hands which Barrie held tightly clasped together in her

lap. "You mustn't be naughty and misunderstand. I don't want to lose you

like that, now you've taken all the trouble to find me--with the help of

our good Somerled. But--will you be a sister to me?--as popular men have

to say in Leap Year."

"I'll do whatever you want me to do," Barrie answered in the same little

voice, like that of a chidden child. "Am I--would you like me to stay

with you here, or----"

"Why, I suppose"--Mrs. Bal showed that she was startled--"I suppose we

must fix up a place for you--for a few days. But I don't see how you can

go with me on tour. It wouldn't be good for you at all. The best way is

for us to have a nice little visit together, and get acquainted with

each other, and then perhaps I'd better send you to--er--to my flat in

London, or--to boarding-school, or somewhere. I _quite_ understand you

wouldn't go back to your grandmother at any price, would you?"

"I'd rather do that than be a trouble to you," said Barrie. "Only, I

don't think she'd take me back. But I could try----"

"Certainly Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald won't hear of your going back to

live in Carlisle, I'm sure," said Somerled, looking somehow formidable

to reckon with as his eyes met Mrs. Bal's. Then, to the girl's mother:

"I am connected with her father's family in a way, you know, and I took

advantage of the connection to make Mrs. MacDonald's acquaintance at

Hillard House, after I'd met--her granddaughter. The arrangement between

us was that I should play guardian _pro tem_. So if you want any advice

about--Miss MacDonald's future, perhaps you'll be good enough to let me

help you."

"Thanks, oh, thanks! I accept gratefully," replied Mrs. Bal, who had no

doubt already heard downstairs some few words explaining Barrie's

presence with our party in Scotland. "And you'll tell everybody she's my

sister, won't you?"

"I'll not say anything to the contrary," he promised grimly.

"And you, Mr. Norman? You, dear Mrs. James?"

"I'll protect the secret with my life," said I, laughing. If I were a

woman, I should have been hysterical by this time.

"I'll keep my mouth shut," replied Mrs. James, with pitying eyes that

said to the girl, "If _I_ were your mother, dear child, young as I like

to look, I'd be _proud_ to own you!"

"What about your American victims?" I inquired of Barrie.

Mrs. Bal pricked up her ears. "What victims?" she asked before her

daughter had time to speak.

"Four young men who have prostrated themselves under Miss MacDonald's

chariot," I explained. "All who see her do this." In adding the little

tribute I meant well; but I saw in an instant that I'd been tactless.

Mrs. Bal regarded the girl reflectively; and that uncomfortable faculty

I have for reading people's thoughts told me she was repeating to

herself, "Ah, so all the men who see this child fall in love with her,

do they? H'm!"

"They--I never talked to them about--about having a--mother," Barrie

stammered.

"And this Mr. Douglas?" Mrs. Bal asked. "Is he too a 'victim?'"

"He appears to be something of the sort," I was obliged to answer, as

she appealed to me. "The Douglas Heart, you know! And he has a cousin

with whom he's staying----"

"Oh, do, dear Mr. Norman, like an angel of mercy 'square' them for me,

will you, and all the others who know?" Mrs. Bal implored,

ostentatiously ignoring Somerled, who had too evidently gone over to the

younger generation. "Your sister, too--and her friends? Will you go and

see if they have come, and if they have, bring them here--or plead my

cause eloquently, or something?"

"I'll go at once," I agreed, rising. On principle, I disliked and

despised the gorgeous, selfish creature; but there was that in me which

longed to please her, and delighted in being chosen as her defender,

over the head of Somerled, so to speak. I was not sorry to escape from

the scene which Barrie's pale face and o'er-bright eyes made very

trying; also I was really anxious to find out if Aline had come. If she

had not, I should begin to worry about her and the poor old car--to say

nothing of the tribe of Vanneck.

As I went out, I heard Mrs. Bal exclaim, "Oh, by the way, if she's to be

my sister, she can't be a MacDonald, She'll have to take the name of

Ballantree. It was my maiden name, you know."

A disagreeable surprise awaited me outside. I learned that, while we'd

been out after luncheon, my sister and the Vannecks had come, but that

Aline had had a mishap. She'd been wearing a motor-mask veil, according

to her custom, in order to protect her complexion. The talc front over

her face had been damaged in the morning's storm, and somehow her eyes

were injured. I should have received the news sooner had I gone to the

desk instead of following Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald upstairs.

Off I hurried to Aline's room, where I found Mrs. Vanneck with my

sister, and an oculist whom George had hurried out to fetch. The poor

girl was suffering, and a good deal frightened, though we tried to

console her. As she went to the window to be examined by the specialist,

I could see that her face and hair and lilac silk blouse were covered

with a powder of talc, which sparkled like diamond dust. Her eyes and

lids were full of the stuff, it proved, and she cried with nervousness

and pain as the oculist proceeded to get it all out.

It was impossible to speak to her of Barrie and Mrs. Ballantree

MacDonald, but I told Maud Vanneck, who, though mildly horrified,

promised for herself and her brothers that the secret should not be

revealed.

When I returned to Mrs. Bal's sitting-room, I found Somerled and Mrs.

James gone. Barrie was alone with her newly found--sister, and a more

forlorn little figure than our young goddess it would be hard to

imagine. Andromeda chained to her rock could not have looked more

dismally deserted by her friends. A room had been taken for her, and she

was now transformed into Miss Barribel Ballantree. "What a good thing I

wouldn't let her be called Barbara after me," said Mrs. Bal. "We should

have had to change her whole name, and that would have been _really_

awkward!"

I should have retired at once, when my errand was done, but Mrs. Bal

would not let me go. I think, for one thing, she wasn't at ease with

Barrie alone; and for another, she wanted to see if I too were a victim

of this young person who might perhaps turn out a formidable rival as

well as an inconvenient daughter. Barrie evidently wished me to stay;

and I made no effort to conceal my real feeling for the girl from either

of them. I thought that now was the time to let myself go. Barrie was

inwardly yearning for comfort and love, and I opened the door of my

heart for her to see that it and all within were hers. I was on the

spot, and Somerled wasn't; so I hoped that Barrie might be thankful even

for her "brother of the pen." Mrs. Bal's bright, observant eyes saw and

understood.

Presently she announced that she was rather tired, and would lie down,

as there would be rehearsing to-morrow in the theatre; and though she'd

opened in Dundee, she would be almost as nervous in Edinburgh as on a

first night. Her maid was rung for. The eldest and reddest one came.

Barrie and I went out together, I longing for a few words in the

corridor, or at least a friendly pressure of the hand. But I saw that

she was in no condition to be spoken to. The reaction was coming on, and

I let her go at once. She almost ran down the passage to a room not far

away, and slammed the door.

* * * * *

Neither Mrs. Bal nor Barrie appeared again that evening. Presumably they

had dinner together in Mrs. Bal's quarters; and the heather moon shone

as through a glass darkly for the rest of us. Aline was ordered to keep

her room for the next few days, which settled our plans--or hers, at all

events. And we were a party of men dining that night, the two Vannecks

and Somerled and I, for Mrs. James "had a headache," and Maud kept Aline

company.

The great Somerled was reflective if not morose. I wondered what his

schemes were concerning Barrie, for I imagined uneasily that he was

working with some idea; and if I didn't mean to sit still and let him

cage the dove while it fluttered homeless and forlorn, I must come out

of my corner into the open to fight for it.

After dinner Aline sent for me, and her message included Somerled, if he

could "spare her a few minutes." He could and did with a good grace. We

went together to the small sitting-room, which looked dull compared with

Mrs. Bal's decorated background, though George Vanneck and I had done

our best, on an Edinburgh Sunday, in the way of roses. Somerled had

forgotten to incarnate his sympathy in flower form, and I read remorse

in his eyes as they fell upon Aline, piteous and prostrate.

Electric light was not permitted, and the room was lit only by a few

green-shaded candles which made the invalid ethereally pale. She

reclined on a sofa and wore her best tea-gown, or whatever women call

those loose classic-looking robes nowadays. It was white, and becoming.

She had built up a wall of cushions, against which she leaned, and her

hair was done in two long plaits under a fetching lace cap which gave

her a Marie Antoinette effect. This hair-arrangement interested me

scientifically, because when I breakfast with Aline in our private

sitting-room at a hotel, she often has her hair hanging down, and it has

never looked so long nor so thick as it did on this occasion. She must

have had some clever way of plumping it out. Her eyes being tender and

inflamed had temporarily lost their beauty, so she had tied over them a

folded lace handkerchief or small scarf.

"You look like a model for a classic figure of Justice," said

Somerled--"all but your smart Paris cap."

"Why, was Justice blind? I thought that was Love," said Maud Vanneck,

gayly airing her ignorance. I couldn't help thinking--nor could

Somerled, I'm sure--that Aline looked more like Love-in-a-mist than

stern Justice; but I feared that he had definitely ceased to regard her

from the love point of view, if ever he'd inclined to it.

Aline, who had heard nothing yet about Mrs. Bal, was anxious for the

story. I saw that Somerled desired me to speak, but I threw the

responsibility on him. I wanted to know how he would tell the story; but

I might have guessed that he would be as laconic, as non-committal as

possible, and that, much as he might yearn to do so, he would not

criticise Barrie's mother.

"I think she admired her daughter," he said quietly, "but being what she

is, and looking no more than twenty-five, what can one expect? Of course

the sister fraud will be found out sooner or later; but the important

thing in Mrs. Bal's mind seems to be that it shall be later."

"Is it right for us to help her deceive poor Mr. Bennett?" asked Maud

Vanneck, who is a person of earnest convictions.

I chuckled at hearing the big chap called "poor," perhaps for the first

time in his life; and even Somerled smiled.

"None of us are pledging ourselves to lie for the lady," said he. "We

simply hold our tongues. If Bennett asks Mrs. Bal to be his wife, he's

not the sharp man of affairs he's supposed to be if he expects to find

her a mirror of truth. When he discovers that she has a grown-up

daughter he'll shrug his shoulders, and perhaps never even let her know

she's been found out. I'm not very well acquainted with Bennett, but

I've met him a few times, and his most agreeable social quality seems to

me his strong, rather rough sense of humour. I expect he'll see the

funny side of being hoodwinked by Mrs. Bal. And a few years more or less

on her age--what do they matter to him? He's forty-five; and on the

whole he couldn't get a wife to suit him better."

"I have a sneaking sympathy with Mrs. Bal," confessed Aline, in her

gentlest voice. "She's conquered all of you men, and has no further fear

of you; but I feel that she's trembling in her shoes because of Maud and

me. I should love to reassure her and let her know that we're not cats."

"Shall I take her a message?" I suggested, trying not to seem too eager.

"I'm sure she'd like to get it."

Aline smiled indulgently. "Poor boy, doesn't he want me to say 'yes?'

It's too late this evening, I'm afraid; but call on her and Barrie early

to-morrow morning, and ask if she'd care to drop in on the poor invalid,

on her way to rehearsal. I'd better see Mrs. Bal alone. She may want to

say things she wouldn't wish Barrie to hear--don't you think so, Mr.

Somerled? And, by the way, now your little ward is--more or less--safe

in other hands, have you settled your future plans?"

"I expect to have something mapped out to-morrow," Somerled answered.

"You'll go on with your trip--your rest cure--I suppose, as you meant to

when we--that is, before you were saddled with all this responsibility?"

"I've been looking forward to Edinburgh, from the first," said he,

evasively.

Aline saw that she would get no more satisfaction, and ceased to risk

irritating him; but after her guests had bidden her good-night, she kept

me for a talk.

Of course she made me describe the scene between Barrie and her mother,

but she was more interested to know how Somerled had looked, what he had

said and done, than in my opinion of Mrs. Bal.

"What do _you_ think he means to do?" she appealed to me, desperately.

"Do you think he's so infatuated with Barrie that he'll offer to take

the girl off her mother's hands and marry her?"

"I've been studying Somerled for both our sakes," I said. "What I think

is, he's been telling himself the girl is too young and all that, and

ought to have a chance to meet a lot of other men. Yet he's seen how she

unconsciously attracts every male creature who comes along, and that

it's a danger for her if----"

"_Unconsciously_ attracts! But I forgot, you're infatuated too. And she

_doesn't_ attract everybody. George Vanneck hardly considers her pretty.

He can't bear this rising generation of long-legged young colts, he

says; and he calls her hair carrots."

"We'll cross George off the list. It's long enough without him, and

increasing with leaps and bounds. There'll probably be more names on it

by to-morrow night" (evidently I have a prophetic soul). "But to go back

to Somerled. Of course he foresaw something of what happened to-day: but

Barrie's face when Mrs. Bal suggested being a sister to her was enough

to turn a man of marble into a man of fire; and I don't think Somerled's

resolutions up to that point were as hard even as sandstone. He must see

now, as I do, that there'll be no place for the poor child with her

mother, whether Mrs. Bal marries a millionaire or goes gayly on with her

career as an actress. What is to become of a girl like Barrie, left to

her own devices, with every man--well, let's say every _second_ man--who

passes, stopping to flirt if not to propose? My fear is that Somerled's

resolutions are turning round the other way, and that he's contemplating

himself as permanent guardian--if Barrie'll take him."

"Take him! She'll snap at him. She shows her feelings in the most

disgusting way. Oh, my _dear_ boy! I apologize. But I have feelings

too--as you know only too well."

"I'm afraid she _is_ getting to like him," I said, "but I persuade

myself, anyhow, that she's more in love with love in general than with

Somerled in particular. She's under the influence of the heather moon."

"I'm not going to let her have Somerled!" Aline cried out sharply. "I

can't bear it. Can you?"

"I'm an idiot about the girl," I admitted. "I get worse every day. The

more flies that collect round the honey the more I want it myself. I

didn't know I was that sort of person, but I am. The worst of it is, she

calls me her brother, which is fatal."

"No, it isn't. It shan't be," said Aline. "I shall get her for you."

"Thank you very much," said I.

"I'm not joking. An idea is on its way to me. I've been seeing it dimly

for days, but its success depended a good deal on Mrs. Bal. Now, her

being afraid of me makes it easier. I can't lie here idle, with all this

going on--yet I can't let _him_ see me as I am. My eyes look hideous.

They're pink, like an albino's. Otherwise I wouldn't listen to the

oculist. But I must do something. I begin to see what I _can_ do, if

you'll go on helping me and yourself, and not be a fool."

"I won't be more of a fool than Nature made me," I assured her, "though

I may be a fool to love that girl."

"No, for you can make her care. Of course you can. She's hardly more

than a child."

"You were married at eighteen," I reminded my sister. "At least you

always tell people you were."

"If you were a woman, you'd be a thorough cat! It's true--I wasn't much

more, but _I_ was mature in mind. I'd seen the world. Barrie MacDonald

will make you happy. You'll play together all your lives, and she can

take my place, helping you to write stories. It will be quite a romance

for the newspapers. And when she's out of sight, out of mind with Ian

Somerled, he'll realize that she wasn't the right one. He'll come back

to me, and see that I was always meant for him."

"A woman's instinct is often right. Also many a heart is caught in the

rebound," said I, falling back on proverbs. And in this way, with the

talc that entered Aline's eyes, malice entered our hearts. Thus we took

up our parts of (alleged) villain and villainess.

* * * * *

Next morning, as early as I dared, I sent to ask if I might give Mrs.

Ballantree MacDonald a message from my sister. Word came back that she

would see me at once. Five minutes later I was knocking at the door of

her sitting-room, and, obeying her "Come in," found myself in the

presence of a Vision. She was in one of those tea-gown arrangements like

Aline's, only more so. She had a cap which, I fear, would have made

Aline's look, as they expressively say on the other side, "like thirty

cents." And if Morgan P. Bennett had seen the beautiful Barbara then, he

would have proposed without hesitating another second. That is, he would

have done so if Barrie hadn't come in before he began. She did come

while I was giving Aline's message to Mrs. Bal, and though she looked as

if she hadn't slept, to me she was more lovable than ever. I tried to

convince myself that Aline was right; that this girl and I were made for

each other; that, if I could take her away from Somerled, she and I were

bound to be happy together forever after.

Mrs. Bal explained that she was later than usual because she had not had

a good night, and her chief maid, in reality a trained nurse, had been

giving her electric massage.

"Now I feel equal," she added, "to tackling the world, the flesh, _et le

diable_. Mrs. West is the world. Morgan Bennett's the _flesh_(he weighs

two hundred pounds!) and--I shall be the devil. I always am at a

rehearsal. But the mood shan't come on while I'm with your sister. Now I

must go and get dressed. I'll not be fifteen minutes. Really! You don't

know what I can do in the flying line, when I choose. You may stay and

amuse--my little sister."

I knew better than to ask questions. If the girl wanted sympathy she

could find it in my eyes, but she would resent pity. I praised Mrs. Bal,

and found that I'd struck the right note.

"Yes!" Barrie exclaimed. "Isn't mother--I mean Barbara--gloriously

beautiful? She wants me to call her Barbara, and I shall love it. I

shall love to do whatever she wants me to do, I'm sure, because she's

such a darling. Everybody must want to do what she wants them to do,

whether it's right or wrong--though she wouldn't want anything she

_thought_ wrong, of course. Just fancy, she's given me heaps of pretty

things. I begged her not, but she would make me take them--a string of

pearls, and this ring--my very first!" (How I wish that I had put her

"very first" ring--or kiss--on the finger she displayed!) "And two

bangles--and she's going to pay back Sir S.--I mean Mr. Somerled" (so

she has her own name for him!)--"the money he lent me for my father's

brooch. Barbara doesn't want the brooch. I'm to keep it. And she says

she'll give me an allowance--but she expects Grandma to leave me

everything in her will. _I_ don't--and I'd rather not, though

moth----Barbara thinks I shall some day be quite well off. I fancied we

were very poor, but Barbara says Grandma must have got back nearly all

that was lost, by saving."

I guess that the girl was making talk to show me how well satisfied she

was with everything; but whenever she met my eyes she looked away, to

interest herself in some photograph or ornament.

In less than the promised fifteen minutes Mrs. Bal appeared again, very

lovely and ridiculously young in a short blue serge dress, with a turned

down collar that showed her firm white throat. I was allowed to remain

with Barrie while "Barbara" went up to see my sister; and the ice being

broken between us, we chatted comfortably of everyday things, I

unreasonably happy because I had got in ahead of Somerled for once. It

began to seem like a game of chess between us; I--directed by

Aline--playing against Somerled. If Aline upstairs were at this minute

making the move she planned, it would be check to his queen, Barrie of

course being queen.

The only questions I ventured to ask the girl, and those in a casual

way, were, "Had she heard from or seen Somerled since yesterday

afternoon? And what was the programme for her, during this week of the

new play in Edinburgh?"

Her answers were that she had neither seen nor heard from Somerled, and

that she didn't know what she was to do during the week. She hoped to

see something of Edinburgh. She supposed we--and Mr. Somerled--would

soon be leaving for the west or north. But she had written Mr. Douglas,

by Barbara's request, and he was very nice. He might be counted on to

show her things. He was invited to call this afternoon with his cousin.

Jack Morrison had written asking to come too, and Barbara said that he

might do so--bringing his three friends. She--Barrie--must be very, very

careful always to say "Barbara" and never--the _other_. She could

_quite_ understand now how the darling felt, though it had seemed queer

at first.

By and by Mrs. Bal returned, and I saw by the light in her eyes and the

colour on her cheeks that the conversation with Aline had been

interesting. Hardly had she arrived and begun demanding from her various

maids various things wanted at the theatre, when Somerled sent up to beg

a moment's talk with her.

"Tell the gentleman I shall be delighted," she said to the hotel

servant: and I saw that she was smiling the impish smile which Barrie

has inherited.

"So glad you came before I got away!" she exclaimed, shaking hands with

Somerled. "Five minutes more and I should have missed you. I'm due at

the theatre now. The poor wretches are rehearsing without me, but I must

turn up for a scene, at eleven!"

"I won't keep you five minutes," said Somerled, quietly. "I only want to

ask if you'll let Barrie--provided she'd like it--" he glanced at the

girl, whose eyes brightened--"take a few excursions with her friend Mrs.

James and me, in my car this week. You'll be busy and----"

"I should have been delighted, and I'm sure Barrie would," broke in Mrs.

Bal, "but you're just too late. A new thing for you, isn't it? I've been

having the most charming visit with Mrs. West, who is better, but must

keep to her rooms for two or three days. Her car will be eating its head

off unless it's used, and I've promised that her friends the

Vannecks--such _nice_ people! I met them in Mrs. West's

sitting-room--and Mr. Norman shall have Barrie for--probably--the very

excursions you have in mind. Too bad! But first come, first served!

You've all been so good to this girl, one hardly knows how to choose

between you. But I thought Mrs. James was going home at once? I

understood from Barrie that she said so last night?"

"She has decided to stay until the little surprise I'm trying to arrange

for her, comes off--or on. She doesn't know what it is, but she pays me

the compliment of taking it on trust. She'll be disappointed at having

to give up the motor runs she was looking forward to with Barrie."

"You've plenty of old friends in Edinburgh, I'm sure," suggested Mrs.

Bal, "and you can make up a party to console dear Mrs. James for the

loss of Barrie."

"I don't believe Mrs. James can be induced to take any excursions

without Barrie," said Somerled: which meant that he didn't intend to

leave Edinburgh while the girl was in it and at the mercy of her erratic

parent. I thought he was anxious Barrie should understand that he was

not going to desert her. Perhaps she did understand, for she is quick in

penetration; but her own pride, and loyalty to Mrs. Bal, kept her from

showing that she felt need of protection, or even that she supposed

Somerled to be offering it. She did show, however, that it grieved her

to refuse his invitation. She took the "tip" he gave and put it all upon

Mrs. James: how sorry she was not to do any more sight-seeing with dear

Mrs. James. But I knew that the name in her heart was not the name on

her tongue.

Aline had scored. I wanted to know just how, and how far, but I

determined not to leave Barrie with Somerled. I needn't have worried,

however, for Mrs. Bal and I had the same thought. She asked if Barrie

would like to go to the theatre with her and watch a rehearsal.

Naturally, Barrie said yes, and Somerled and I saw them off in the

smaller of the two motor-cars which Morgan Bennett had placed at Mrs.

Bal's service for the Edinburgh week. As for Bennett himself, he was

apparently "lying low," by her wish or his own; but I expected to see

him at the theatre that night. Of course, we were all going to turn out

in full force for "The Nelly Affair." Somerled had taken a box, he told

me, and proceeded to invite the whole party; but there also Aline had

got in ahead. During Mrs. Bal's call upon her, they had arranged that

the Vannecks and I should sit with Barrie in stalls offered by the Star.

Mrs. Bal had (she assured us fluently, before starting off in her car)

intended asking Somerled and Mrs. James too, and stalls were provided

for them. But as he had already engaged a box, she would give the seats

to the two Douglases. Perhaps he--Somerled--would have room in his box

for those nice American boys, of whom Barrie seemed so fond?

Aline was eagerly waiting for me to come back and congratulate her upon

her great success. She wanted to tell me everything; but her desire to

talk was nothing compared with my yearning to hear.

"It's all right," she began. "I've made a bargain with Mrs. Bal. I told

her you were in love with Barrie. That's the way I broke the ice, after

I'd paid her compliments and she'd sympathized about my eyes. I said I'd

keep her secret, and answer for the Vannecks, if she'd give you a chance

with Barrie."

"By Jove!" I grumbled. "You didn't mince matters between you! Anything

said about Somerled?"

"Why, I told her that the child was fancying herself in love with Ian,

and behaving rather foolishly. And I said that Ian was naturally

flattered, but that he was the last man to marry a baby like Barrie; and

if we didn't act quickly, the poor little girl might suffer. You must

have noticed, Basil, that Mrs. Bal doesn't like Ian Somerled."

"I've noticed that she takes an impish delight in thwarting him."

"That's because he once thwarted her. She admitted as much. Or, at least

she said she asked him to paint her portrait, and he did paint it. When

the picture was finished, he gave it to her, and didn't even make

himself a copy."

"Well," I replied, puzzled, "I don't see anything in that to upset her.

Even for a beauty like Mrs. Bal it's a compliment to be painted by

Somerled. And surely it was a mark of regard to make her a present of

the picture, when he can get from a thousand to five thousand pounds for

anything he chooses to do."

"Oh, you _man_," exclaimed Aline. "And you pretend to be a student of

women's characters! Of course Mrs. Bal was furious because he didn't beg

to do her portrait and then make two, one for her, and one for himself.

Fancy my having to explain! And besides, there must have been more than

that in the affair. She wouldn't have asked him to paint the picture if

she hadn't wanted to see him often alone, and make him fall in love with

her. His giving her the portrait was a kind of defiance, to show her

that he didn't care _that_ for the original."

"Oh, well, if you think so!" said I.

"Mrs. Bal thinks so. And she's enchanted to get her revenge. Not that

she'd have chosen this way, because, of course, it's a sickening thing

to have Ian and all these men know that she's old enough to be the

mother of a grown-up daughter--and to be obliged to throw herself on

their mercy to help her out of the scrape. She laughs and pretends it's

a joke, but she simply _hates_ it. I hinted to her that if you married

the girl there'd be no talk ever about Barrie being Mrs. Ballantree

MacDonald's daughter. That should be _forgotten_, I said, though they

could correspond with each other and be good friends. Barrie would live

in Canada with you, and be out of Mrs. Bal's life altogether. And I

impressed it upon her that your ideal existence was a quiet country

place. It was the same as telling her that she'd be _rid_ of Barrie by

giving her to you. Whereas, if the girl should marry Ian, Somerled's

wife would always be before the public eye, and everybody would be sure

to find out all about her. Mrs. Bal caught my meaning, you may be sure;

and she promised me that Barrie should go everywhere with us, or rather,

with you and the Vannecks, till I can get about. Anyhow, _nowhere_ with

Ian. Now, you see, I've done all I can for you."

"And for yourself," I was mean enough to add, for the thought of what we

were doing together was not a good thought, and it brought out the worst

of me.

"I haven't any one to work for my interests. _You_ have," she retorted;

and as I'd no mind for further recrimination I begged her pardon,

thanked her gratefully, and proceeded to tell all that had happened in

Mrs. Bal's room. It was not pleasant for Aline to hear how prompt

Somerled had been in trying to relieve Mrs. Bal of her burden; but there

was consolation in his disappointment.

"Do I look very horrid?" she questioned anxiously, "or do you think I

might ask him to take pity on me for a little while this afternoon, and

sit here when you're all out sight-seeing?"

I reassured her, saying that her eyes looked no worse than if she'd been

indulging in a "good cry." She decided, however, that if Somerled came

she would bandage them again and continue to resemble Justice. I didn't

ruffle her feelings by remarking that morally the resemblance would be a

parody.

When Maud Vanneck and I went, soon after luncheon, to ask if Barrie

would walk in Princes Street, with perhaps a stroll along the High

Street, and on to Holyrood or the Castle, I found Mrs. James in Mrs.

Bal's sitting-room with the two Douglases and the four Americans. The

mother and daughter had returned late from rehearsal, and had just

finished luncheon. Mrs. Bal had a letter in her hand, which had

evidently arrived with a box of orchids, probably a tribute from

Bennett; and the lady's desire to get us out of the way suggested the

imminent arrival of a caller worth keeping to herself.

Finally, it was arranged that we should all go out together, the

Douglases assuring the rest of us that they could open doors which would

be shut to strangers.

"Where's Somerled?" I asked Mrs. James, in case he were condescending to

lie in wait somewhere.

"When I saw him last," she replied, "he'd got an immense pile of foreign

letters, and several cablegrams. It looked as if he'd enough to occupy

him the whole afternoon. Important business I suppose; yet in spite of

all, I believe he's been concerning himself with some surprise for me.

He may perhaps have news I shall like to hear when I get back. I expect

he's been telling some friend about those Stuart chairs I want to sell,

and thinks he's got me a buyer."

The Douglases took us to see the _Scotsman_ building, and the secret,

inner workings of a great newspaper. We descended from marble halls to

vast underground regions, the lair of a monster immeasurably more

powerful than the Minotaur who ramped and raved under the Palace of

Crete. The roar of this modern Minotaur was as the noise of Niagara

broken by stormy bursts of thunder. It stunned the intelligence; it

shrivelled the organs of speech like a dried kernel rattling impotently

in an old nutshell. It filled the world and made human happenings, such

as individual lives and deaths, seem of no more importance than the

snapping of thumb and finger in front of a cataract. I couldn't have

lived in the tumult long and kept my wits; but we heard of an employé

who, when some tooth or nail in the enormous monster smote him, could

not bear to stop away long enough to complete his cure, because he was

unable to bear the "awful stillness" of the hospital. Persons of

impregnable nerve-power let us deeper and deeper into the bowels of the

earth, showing us the dragon's brood, and his terrible wife whose

business it is not only to print the newspaper, but to cut its sheets,

and eventually to lay them like eggs, at the rate of thousands a minute:

a most appalling creature she, who so battered my brain with her

accomplishments and the wild cackle she made over them, that weakly I

let Barrie be snatched from me by Donald Douglas.

In the roar and rush and riot I was incapable of caring, though vaguely

I recalled the fact that I had come out with the sole object of annexing

the girl's society. Vaguely too, though only vaguely, I resented the

Douglas method; but I had my revenge almost before I recovered sense

enough to want it. There came, I know not why or how (perhaps one of the

masters decreed it, to strike our ears with the contrast), a sudden

unexpected lull. It was only a comparative lull, and it lasted no more

than a few seconds; but there was time enough to hear Douglas yell into

Barrie's ear, "I must have you for my own."

The next instant he was purple through his soldier-tan. He knew the

dragon and the dragon's wicked wife had betrayed him, as he took

advantage of their domestic clamour to speak in a crowd as though he

were alone with his love in the desert. What Barrie answered, or if she

had breath to answer, none of us could guess, though all, especially the

four Americans, were bursting with anxiety to know. Later, however, when

we went up to the Castle (anything but the Castle, with its thousand

years of history, would have been an anticlimax after that wonderful

dragon cave), Donald Douglas walked meekly with his cousin, leaving

Barrie to Jack Morrison. As for me, I had temporarily lost my

individuality, and with that roar still echoing through my brain,

vibrating through my nerves, I was glad to crawl along, talking to

nobody, and picking up dropped or untied bits of myself as I went. For

the moment, frankly I didn't care how many men proposed to Barrie, or

whether she accepted them all. But afterward, it was different. It

occurred to me that Jack Morrison was not only a handsome and gallant

fellow, but said to be very rich, at least as rich as Somerled, and ten

years younger. Aline and I might be mistaken about the girl's feelings

for Ian. Very likely it was no more than a romantic sort of gratitude;

and though I absolved the child from the smallest taint of mercenary

motive, it was almost impossible that a sleepless night had not given

her some wise counsel. She was too sensitive and quick-witted a girl, I

reflected, not to have seen that she could not go on living with her

mother, and that it was a necessity to find a niche somewhere. All these

young men saw this also, though they knew no more than the fact that

they were prayed to consider Mrs. Bal an elder sister of "Miss

Ballantree," therefore they were hastening to offer her sheltering

niches, more or less desirable. In other circumstances, they would have

waited a few days, long enough at least for Barrie to know which was

which, and get their features and some of their characteristics ticketed

with the right labels; but as it was, each saw he had no time to waste

if he didn't want his friend or foe to get in ahead of him. While we

were at the Castle, looking at Mons Meg (which recalled Thrieve) and the

banqueting-hall of armour with its faded banners and fadeless memories;

gaping at the mysterious place over the entrance door where, in a

bricked-up alcove, a baby skeleton was found wrapped in cloth of gold

embroidered with a royal monogram; walking through the wainscoted room

where Mary of Guise died; gazing at the long mislaid crown of Bruce

("the Honours of Scotland"); seeing sweet Queen Margaret's Chapel where

the Black Rood lay till it went in state down the hill to make Holyrood

holy; peering at the wall-stairway down which the Douglas boys were

dragged after the "black dinner"; admiring the kilted soldiers; and

drinking in the view over hill and valley and mountains, towns and

nestling villages, the vast, colourful checkerboard of beautiful Mary

Stuart's journeys, flights and fightings: while beholding treasures and

splendours which are as the red drops of Scotland's heart's blood, man

after man took his place at Barrie's side and became her cicerone. Each

talked with her awhile, and after a few brief minutes allowed a change

of partners, the discarded one humbly retiring to Mrs. James's side. It

was really funny; or at least so it seemed until enough self-assertion

came back to admit of my entering the lists. Then I promptly lost my

sense of humour, and had no wish to look for it. I wanted only to look

at Barrie, who was unusually flushed and bright of eye.

By this time there wasn't much left to tell her about the Castle or the

Castle Rock. When I began to work off my erudition by mentioning the

name of Edwin, for whom Edinburgh was named, and who made it a royal

borough in the eleventh century, she said:

"Oh, Mr. Douglas's cousin, the other Douglas, told me that!"

When I related the tale of that gallant Francis who was able to lead Sir

Thomas Randolph and thirty soldiers up the perilous rocks to surprise

the Castle at night, having learned the way when sweethearting down in

the Grass-market, Barrie confessed that she had heard the story already.

Jack Morrison had found it in some old book he had bought at the shop

under John Knox's house, in the High Street. There was no use trying to

work up or classify historic thrills for her in this vast heart of

Scotland; she had been given them all, with generous additional thrills

from private hearts, Scottish and American.

"Has every single one of those chaps proposed to you?" I flung the

question in her face. "You might tell your Mentor."

"Oh, not Donald Douglas's cousin!" she answered hastily. "He's engaged

to some one in the Highlands."

"Good heavens, then all the rest _have_ done it, in a bunch!"

"I think you're _horrid_!" she said indignantly. "I've always heard that

girls don't tell such things to any one."

"They do to their brothers--of the pen, if they have any such. Besides,

you don't need to tell. I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes where people

I--like, are concerned, and I know what's been happening to you this

afternoon. A manna-rain of proposals, in the wilderness of Edinburgh

Castle. Many girls would have accepted them all, and then sorted them

out to see which they liked best; but I have a shrewd idea from the look

of the gentlemen's backs that they are now one and all your adopted

brethren."

"It's almost wicked to joke on such a subject," Barrie reproached me,

trying not to laugh, "and it's not nice of you to make fun of them, just

because you consider yourself superior, as an author who is always

analyzing people's minds and motives. It's not as if they were so much

in love with me that they had to propose in a hurry for their own sakes.

It's not that _at all_; but only because they thought it wouldn't be

very convenient for--Barbara to have me live with her, travelling about

so much, or if she should marry. So they felt as if something ought to

be _done_ for me, you know, as soon as possible."

"Sainted, unselfish young men!" I murmured. "But I don't consider myself

superior, as it happens. I'd do the same thing in a minute if I thought

there were the faintest chance of your giving me an answer different

from theirs. Is there?"

"Don't talk nonsense!" she exclaimed. "But of course, I'm happy to say,

I know you don't mean it."

"Well, if you're happy to say that, I'll leave you your fond illusions

for the present," I returned. "But, as girl to man, tell me; don't you

rather like being proposed to?"

"It's very exciting," she admitted. "I never expected, somehow, that

such a thing could happen to me."

"Oh, didn't you? Why not?"

"Well, there's my red hair, which I always thought was _fatal_, until I

saw my mother's portrait--and heard Mr. Somerled say he liked painting

red-haired women."

"Red hair _can_ be fatal, though not in the way you appear to mean,"

said I. "Which thrilled you more, the Castle or the proposals?"

"Oh, the Castle, of course!" she answered scornfully. "After the first

one or two, they seemed like interruptions."

All five of my rivals (there might have been six, had it not been for

the girl in the Highlands) having had their medicine, I was allowed

almost as much as I wanted of Barrie's society during the walk down from

the Castle Rock, and to Holyrood. Together she and I walked through that

most romantic royal house of all the world; and long as I may live,

never shall I forget those hours. Chestnut-tressed Mary herself could

not have been lovelier than the red-haired girl who walked beside me,

and when the royal beauty came on a day of chill, northern haar, to her

Scottish realm, she was only a year older than this child we all love

but think too young for love. Yet already, at nineteen, Mary was a

King's widow, and had been Queen of France.

It was of Barrie's romance, Barrie's future, I thought most, as we

wandered side by side through the haunted rooms where Mary danced and

loved and suffered, where her grandson Charles I of England came, and

left his ruby Coronation ring for remembrance, and where Prince Charlie,

her far-off descendant, made hearts flutter at the great ball given in

his honour. But it was the past which had all Barrie's thoughts, unless

she sent a few to the man who had stayed at home reading his letters,

instead of following in her train.

We looked at Queen Mary's bed with its tattered splendour of brocade:

the box filled with relics of her short reign in Holyrood: her neat

embroideries, her tear bottle, and Darnley's glove, which Barrie thought

Mary would not like to have kept with the other things: and then, having

saved the best for the last, I took the girl up to the little

supper-room where Rizzio was murdered. Barrie gazed at everything in

silence: and now we could both be silent when we liked, for the

chastened ones had meekly trooped off to show Mrs. James the Abbey, or

Royal Chapel, where Mary and Darnley were married, and where a hundred

things had happened, things connected with others whose romances were as

poignant if less well remembered here, than hers.

We had come up the secret stairway in the wall, because I wanted Barrie

to miss no thrill this place could give; but it was not the thought of

the murder-scene which most caught her imagination. She listened to my

dramatic version of the tragedy of the room, and of the dark closet

where Rizzio tried to hide, and shuddered a little; but soon she was

drawn, as if beckoned by an unseen hand, to the bevelled mirror with

scalloped edge, which Mary brought with her to Scotland from France, a

dim oval full of memories, may be, of dear, dead days at Amboise and

Chenonceaux.

"What does that poor piece of blurred glass make you think of so

intently?" I asked, when Barrie had stood silently staring down the

veiled vista of mystery for many minutes. "You look like a young modern

Cassandra, crystal gazing."

"So I am!" the girl almost whispered. "I'm trying to see something in

the mirror--the things _she_ saw in it--or to see her eyes looking into

mine. If anything can be haunted, it is this mirror. Think of what has

passed before it. But do you know, I don't believe it has ever really

intelligently seen anything since the day Queen Mary went away from

Holyrood. I feel she ran here, to take one last look into her mirror,

and to bid it farewell as she bade farewell to France, gazing and gazing

as the land faded from her sight forever. Then, when she'd gone, the

glass she loved grew dim as it is now, and _blind_ because it could no

longer give back the brightness of her eyes. There's nothing left in it

now but sad dreams and memories of the past."

"Did you ever," I asked, "go down into the cellar at midnight on All

Hallow E'en with a candle and a mirror and wish to see the face of your

future husband?"

"No, indeed," Barrie answered emphatically; "we had no such tricks at

Hillard House."

"Now, in this mirror, if any in the world, you might be able to see such

a vision, not only at midnight, but on an ordinary afternoon, like this

for instance," said I. "Suppose you stop thinking of Queen Mary for a

minute and concentrate on yourself. Wish with all your heart for the

face of the man you'll love, the man you'll marry, to appear under this

clouded surface of glass."

Barrie looked somewhat impressed by my mysterious tone as well as the

overwhelming romance of her surroundings. She put her face close to the

mirror, and I was about to profit by the situation I'd led up to when

some one stepped between us and looked over the girl's shoulder. It was

Somerled, who must have come in just in time to overhear my advice, and

take advantage of it for himself. But he could not wholly blot me out of

the mirror. Both our faces were there, to be seen by Barrie, "as in a

glass darkly." She gave a little cry of surprise, and wheeled round to

smile at Somerled.

"You came after all!" she exclaimed, forgetting or pretending to forget

the solemn rite which had engaged us. But I must admit I was in a mood

to be almost superstitious about it. I had prophesied to the girl that

she would see reflected the face of the man she was destined to love and

marry. An instant later she had seen two faces, Somerled's and mine.

Would she love one man, and marry the other? Or would only one of these

two men count in her life?

Perhaps Queen Mary's mirror knew. It looked capable of knowing--and

keeping--any secret of the human heart.

* * * * *

That night--oh, my prophetic soul!--Morgan Bennett saw Barrie at the

theatre, and looked at her through his opera-glasses almost as often as

he looked at Mrs. Bal in her gay, exciting comedy-drama, "The Nelly

Affair." The play had been written for the actress and suited her

exactly. In fact its whole success was made by her magnetic personality,

her beauty, and her dresses. She scarcely left the stage, and had

something to do or say every minute, yet I noticed that she found

opportunities to observe where Bennett's eyes were straying. As for

Barrie, she saw nothing, heard nothing, thought of nothing, but her

mother, glorious Barbara, who for this evening was Nelly Blake, a girl

of eighteen, seeming not a day older. Barrie, in a white dress, with her

hair in two long braids (Mrs. Bal thought she was too young to wear it

done up), sat among us in an ecstasy. Was ever any one so beautiful, so

clever, so altogether marvellous as darling Barbara? This was as it

should be; and we who knew the girl, knowing that she had never before

seen a play, nor the inside of a theatre, thought her pathetic; but

Morgan Bennett, who did not know her, merely thought her pretty and

wondered how he could get to know her. The very flash of his

opera-glasses was interested and eager; and when I proudly took the girl

behind the scenes to compliment Mrs. Bal after the first act, I was far

from surprised to see Bennett appear almost immediately in the same

mystic region. Barrie and I were with Barbara in a little room which she

intended to use as a boudoir for the week of her engagement; and when an

employé of the theatre announced Mr. Bennett, she looked annoyed. For an

instant she hesitated visibly; but as he was probably aware that she had

visitors, there was no good excuse for sending him away. Part of Mrs.

Bal's success with men consists in knowing what kind of snubs they will

meekly endure from a lovely spoiled woman, what kind they neither forget

nor forgive. She sent word to Mr. Bennett that he might come in.

He accepted the invitation promptly, and Barbara, with quick presence of

mind, introduced him to her little "sister Barribel."

"Barribel! That's a pretty name," he said, shaking hands with Barrie,

his eyes on her face. "Miss Barribel Ballantree, I suppose."

"You may suppose so!" returned Mrs. Bal, laughing.

"I saw this young lady sitting out in front," he went on, instead of

congratulating the actress at once on the success of the first act,

which had "gone" splendidly with the large audience. "I said to myself

there must be a relationship between you two: and I was wondering."

"Well, you needn't bother to wonder any more," broke in Mrs. Bal, very

gay but slightly shrill. "I must have spoken to you about Barrie?"

"'Barrie' is what you call her?" said he, smiling at the girl. "That's a

very nice pet name, and suits her, somehow. You surely never spoke of

your sister to me. I shouldn't have forgotten." He added the last words

with a look intended as a compliment for Barrie; and any woman wishing

to monopolize his attention exclusively might have been pardoned for

thinking that he had looked at her more than often enough in the

circumstances. In his big way he is attractive, to certain types of

women, very attractive indeed, and I could understand that his millions

might not be his only charm for Mrs. Bal. He has eyes which can be

fierce as an eagle's; the strong, almost cruel jaw of the predestined

millionaire who will mount to success at any cost; a pleasure-loving

mouth, and--when he is pleased--a boyish smile. When he is severely

displeased, I shouldn't care to be there to see him, especially if he

were displeased with me. But I suspect Mrs. Bal to be one of those women

who could not love a man unless she were afraid of him. In that may have

lain the secret of Somerled's former fascination for her, if it existed.

"If I've forgotten to mention Barrie, it's because I'm always talking

about _you_, when we're together," Mrs. Bal excused herself with dainty

impertinence of the sort Bennett will stand from her. "If it isn't about

you, it's about your motors--or some affair of yours."

"I thought you, and _your_ affairs were generally the subject of our

conversations," retorted the big man, still looking more at the young

girl than at the woman. "Miss Ballantree is your affair----"

"She has only just become so," Barbara hurried to explain. "Her

grandmother, who thoroughly disapproves of me and all actresses, has

kept the child shut up in a moated grange all her life. It's a wonder I

didn't forget her existence! She _had_ begun to seem like a sort of

dream-sister, until she suddenly dropped in on me yesterday, and

announced that she'd run away from home. I'm simply enchanted to have

the darling with me, for my own sake, or I should be if I hadn't such a

beautiful, unselfish nature that I find I worry myself into fits about

her when she's out of my sight. To-night I couldn't half act, because I

was thinking about her all the time, and wondering what on earth I could

do to make her happy. I foresee I shan't be able to study or rehearse or

anything, while she's getting into mischief in a big hotel. I shall send

her away though to-morrow, for a few days, with some _very_ dear friends

of hers, who will give her a good time until I settle down and feel at

home with this new play--in which, by the way, you don't seem to take

the _slightest_ interest. You haven't said a word about it, or how it

went, or how I acted."

"You know better than that----" Bennett was beginning when Barrie (to

whom, despite his size, he was a figure of no importance) broke in

without being aware that he was speaking.

"Oh, Barbara, you won't make me go _to-morrow_; You promised----"

"If she promised, we must make her stick to her promise," said Bennett,

forgiving the interruption, and perhaps willing to tease Mrs. Bal.

The beautiful Barbara, however, had gathered together her scattered

wits, and was too wise to show that she was being teased. "I know, I

meant to keep you with me this Edinburgh week anyhow," she answered the

girl. "But, sweetest, you won't want to hold me to the promise, no

matter what Mr. Bennett or any one else says, if I tell you that I'm

worrying over your being here? I don't feel it's the right thing for

you. And it's certain Grandma will change her will if she hears you're

living with me. It's a miracle I didn't dry up in my part to-night from

sheer anxiety and absent-mindedness. You'd hate me to _fail_ through

you, dear one, I know."

"Oh, yes--anything but that," Barrie exclaimed, tears in her eyes.

Alas, if only some other name than that of M. P. Bennett had added

itself to her list of admirers, all might have been well for Barrie with

sister Barbara, at least for a little while! As it was, the girl's fate

was sealed. So much the better for me: yet my fool of a heart ached for

her disappointment, instead of leaping for joy at my own good luck.

Mrs. Bal looked at the girl with an odd expression on her charming face,

painted for the stage. There was compunction, if not remorse, in the big

brown eyes, but there was no relenting. She liked Barrie and enjoyed her

childish adoration, but she loved herself, and she wanted to "land"

Morgan Bennett. The girl would have to be sacrificed; still, those

rising tears gave Barbara pain to see. She would really have been glad

to make Barrie happy, if the creature's youth and beauty had not been an

hourly peril for her.

"Don't look so disconsolate, dear," she said. "You're going to have a

glorious time. And if wet eyelashes are a compliment to me, they're just

the opposite to Mr. Norman."

"Is it Mr. Norman the novelist?" Bennett wanted to know.

"Yes. And he's going to let Barrie help him with a story--or else he's

putting her into one, I'm not quite sure which."

Barbara threw him this bit of information with a sweetly casual air, but

it was one of the cleverest things she ever did, on the stage or off.

Somehow, with a smile that flashed over us all with a special meaning

for each--affection for Barrie, a benediction for me, and a secret

understanding for Bennett--she contrived to convey to him the idea that

her little sister was already bespoken. No use his being led away by

rosebud innocence! It was engaged, and if he were wise he would be true

to his love for the full-blown rose.

"Just think, pet, what an honour to be taken about by such famous people

as Basil Norman and Aline West," she went on, "and to have them for your

best friends. You'd have had a horrid dull time with them gone, for I

should have had to leave you alone a lot. And next week, when they bring

you back to me at Glasgow, your future will be all beautifully

arranged."

"But Mrs. West isn't well enough to go to-morrow----" Barrie pleaded.

"No. But Mrs. Vanneck will chaperon you for a few days. You ought to be

frightfully happy, seeing Scotland with those you love while your poor

Barbara works for her daily bread. And now you must go out in front

again with Mr. Norman, if you don't want to miss the beginning of the

second act. Mr. Bennett has seen it, so he can stop with me five minutes

if he likes, till my call."

Barrie had been at rehearsal, and would no doubt have been quite willing

to miss any part of the play not graced by Mrs. Bal's presence on the

stage; but short as was the time since she made her mother's

acquaintance, she had learned to know the lady well enough to realize

when she was not wanted. She went with me like a lamb resigned to the

slaughter; and so, I was sure, would she start with us next day. But

just here, I think, is the place to write down what had meanwhile

happened to Mrs. James. If it hadn't been for that happening, perhaps we

should not, after all, have snatched the girl away so easily from

Somerled. And the funny thing was--for it had its funny side, as even he

must have seen--the funny thing was, that all was his own fault. When he

planned that wonderful surprise for Mrs. James, he little thought it

would be the means of stealing his trump card from him. Generous he may

be, and is, I must admit; but it's not likely that he would have been

unselfish enough to put himself in a hole for Mrs. James's happiness,

especially as he could have got just as much credit from Barrie by

waiting a few weeks--say, until the end of the "heather moon."

To have brought in the "surprise" in its proper order, I should have

worked it into my notes between our sight-seeing expedition in the

afternoon, and the theatre in the evening, for it was common property by

that time. We all knew (from Mrs. James, not from himself), what a noble,

magnificent, wonderful, glorious, altogether pluperfect fellow Somerled

was, to have interested himself in her behalf, and to have given her

such happiness as all her friends had thought her mad to dream of

through the dreary years.

Always, it seems, she believed that her husband, who disappeared

seventeen years ago, was alive, and only waiting for success to crown

his ambitions, before returning to her. Everybody else thought he had

drowned himself, because of some professional trouble. But Mrs. James's

faith has been the great romance of her life; and Barrie (or the little

woman herself, I don't know which) told Somerled the story the day they

left Carlisle in his car. Some details caught his attention, and made

him wonder if Mrs. James's instinct were not more right than other

people's reason.

When Somerled went to America as a boy, he travelled in the steerage. On

board the same ship was a man calling himself James Richard, a man of

something over thirty, in whom Somerled became interested. They made

friends, though they gave each other no intimate confidences; and James

Richard made one or two remarks which suggested that he had been a

doctor. Evidently he was a man of culture, interested in many things,

including chemistry and Scottish history. After landing in New York the

two met occasionally by appointment, and the older man spoke of an

invention which, if he could get the help of some millionaire to perfect

it, ought to make his fame and fortune, and revolutionize anaesthetics;

but Somerled had thought little of this at the time. So many men he met

in those days had queer fads by means of which they hoped to achieve

glory. Soon, even before he himself reached success, Somerled and James

Richard drifted apart. The rising artist forgot the ship-acquaintance

with whom, owing to the difference in their ages and interests, he had

never had more than casual acquaintance. It was not until he heard the

story of Mrs. James's husband, the clever doctor who loved Scottish

history and had invented a new anaesthetic just before disappearing

seventeen years ago, that he remembered his shipmate, James Richard.

Then he recalled his appearance; and the descriptions tallied. A scar on

the forehead was a distinguishing mark with the man supposed to have

drowned himself and the man who had travelled to America in the

steerage. Somerled cabled at once to New York, instructing a firm of

private detectives to trace James Richard, an Englishman, probably a

doctor, who had landed in New York from a certain ship on a certain

date.

The first reply was not very encouraging. The man had left New York many

years ago, and no one knew where he had gone. But the next cablegram

brought news that James Richard, or some one answering to the name and

description had been tracked to Chicago. There he had practised as a

doctor with some success, but had fallen seriously ill, had given up his

business, and had again disappeared. The detective "on the job" was

going to Colorado to look for him, as the climate of that state had been

recommended to Richard by a fellow practitioner.

On the Monday morning after our arrival in Edinburgh, a third message

had come. This announced that the doctor had left Colorado and gone to

California, where he was now living at Riverside, with a rising

practice; but that he was considered a "crank," because he constantly

besieged rich men to start a laboratory in which to work out his

theories. Two or three had half promised their help, but for some reason

or other the financial schemes had fallen through. Still the man never

appeared to lose hope. Having received this news, Somerled wired direct

to the doctor, offering him as much money as he needed, if, before

anything further was settled, he would come over to Scotland and reveal

himself to his wife.

Up to this time, Somerled had said nothing to Mrs. James, except that he

hoped to give her a pleasant surprise; and told her even this only

because she planned to go back to Carlisle, now that Barrie was with her

mother. Naturally Somerled had several important reasons for wishing the

little woman to stay; but the one, he alleged, was his desire to see

what she thought of the "surprise" when it came.

He, of course, must have had visions of keeping this useful queen of

spades up his sleeve, that he might be ready to trump one of our knavish

tricks with her, at any moment; but the gods fought against him for

once. Just before theatre-time, arrived a long cablegram from James

Richard, alias Richard James. He thanked Somerled enthusiastically (Mrs.

James showed the message to me, and to every one of us), accepted his

loan, believing that eventually it could be repaid, and was more than

happy to hear news of his wife, whom he had left only for her own good,

because at that tune he considered himself disgraced and ruined. He had

intended suicide, but the thought of his invention had changed his mind

and plans at the last moment. He had gone to the new world to find what

the old had denied him, and after a hundred disappointments he was to be

rewarded, through Somerled. He asked now for nothing better than to

return, but only for long enough to see his wife, and take her back to

California with him. To his deep regret, however, he could not start at

once, as he had broken his leg and would not be able to travel for

several weeks at least. Would she come to him as soon as she could

settle her affairs?

I imagine Somerled must have been sorely tempted not to show this

message, for it would rob him of Mrs. James and leave him where he had

been after his quarrel with Aline, minus a chaperon for Barrie, if he

could contrive to snatch the girl from Mrs. Bal. But he had said too

much about the "surprise" to suppress developments now. Besides, it

would have been almost inhuman to delay the meeting of the husband and

wife, so long parted. Neither would have forgiven him if he had coolly

kept them apart for his own convenience; but so grateful, so adoring to

her hero was Mrs. James, that if "the doctor" had not been ill and

needing her, I think of her own free will she would have offered to stop

in Edinburgh for a few days to "see what happened." As it was, there was

no question of her staying. She and Somerled arranged that she should

leave for Carlisle by the first train possible in the morning. At home

she was to settle her few affairs temporarily, and catch a quick ship

for New York, whence she would hurry on to California.

Somerled gave her advice for the journey (and perhaps something more

substantial), but he must have seen that, though virtue might be its own

reward, he was unlikely to get any other. Mrs. Bal had lent Barrie to

us, and without a woman to aid and abet him, it seemed to me that he was

powerless. Such chaperons as Mrs. James don't grow on blackberry bushes

even in Scotland, where blackberries, if not gooseberries, are the best

in the world. Somerled had done for himself.

Oh, there was no doubt of it this time! Not only had we, in the game of

chess we were quietly playing with him, got his little white queen in

check; we had swept her off the board.

* * * * *

Happenings began thick and fast the morning after.

The first thing I heard was, from Aline, that at the theatre last night

(probably just after she sent us away) Mrs. Bal had told Morgan Bennett

in so many words that Barrie was practically engaged to me. After a

week's trip in my society it was to be expected that she would arrive in

Glasgow to ask her elder sister's blessing.

This, Aline thought, necessitated our getting off at once, lest Bennett

should contrive to meet the girl alone somehow, and question her. If he

did this, the "fat would be in the fire" for Mrs. Bal, and perhaps for

me too.

"The sooner the better," said I; for I was impatient to spirit the girl

away from Somerled, and turn her thoughts from him to me. If I prayed to

the heather moon for help, I felt that I ought to succeed; for the man

who can have a girl of eighteen to himself (not counting a few chaperons

lying about loose) in a motor-car for a week, passing through the

loveliest country in the world, and can't make her forget for his sake

some other fellow she's known only a few hours longer, must be a born

duffer. This I dinned into my consciousness.

It was to be my first real chance with Barrie; and though never in my

life before have I made serious love to any flesh-and-blood girl, I've

made so much with my pen to the most difficult and diverse heroines,

that I had a certain belief in my own powers, once they had free play.

The second thing that happened this morning of happenings, however, was

a slight setback, just enough of a setback to let me see that the

heather moon is a goddess who exacts more wooing from her votaries than

I had given. Or else, that she has her favourites, and is more ready to

look with a kindly eye on a man born to the heather than one who comes

from afar to write it up.

Barrie, it appeared, had had a "scene" with Barbara. She had insisted

with tears and (according to Mrs. Bal) stampings of foot, that she

_would_ go to the Waverley station with Mrs. James and see her off for

Carlisle.

Mrs. James was to be taken to the train by Somerled, in his car; and as

no one but Barrie had been invited, this meant that the girl would

return with him alone. To be sure, it would not take five minutes for

the Gray Dragon to slip from the Waverley end of Princes Street back to

the Caledonian. On the other hand, it was evident that Mrs. James must

have a special reason for choosing the Waverley station, when she could

just as well have gone from our own; and Aline and I could see only one.

Somerled wanted to snatch five minutes alone with Barrie; and he was not

the man to waste a single one of the five. The question was, what use

did he intend to make of his time? None of us could guess, for Somerled

is a puzzle too hard to read. Not even Aline (who was so nervous that,

figuratively speaking, she started at every sound in the enemy's camp)

believed that Somerled would try to run away with the girl. I soothed

her by saying that I thought it very doubtful whether Somerled would ask

the girl to marry him, even if everything were in his favour. I still

tried to believe that in his opinion she was too young and had seen too

little of life to settle down as a married woman. He might be in love

with her--to me it was beginning to seem impossible that a man could

know her and not be in love--but with a strong, self-controlled man of

Somerled's calibre, falling in love and marrying need not be the same

thing.

Mrs. Bal, after the "scene" (in which she too, apparently, played a

stormy part) had angrily consented to give Barrie her own way, but only

on the girl's threat to decline making the trip with us, if thwarted.

Something in Barrie's eyes had warned the lady not to go too far, and on

her promise to return directly Mrs. James had gone, Mrs. Bal sulkily

waived her objections.

"Why don't you, too, see Mrs. James off?" suggested Aline. "You've been

great friends. She ought to be complimented. And you might take her some

flowers. That would please Barrie, who is now worshipping Ian as a tin

saint on wheels because he has found Mrs. James's husband and offered to

finance him to success. You ought to do _something_."

I thought this a good idea, and on the top of it had one of my own,

which I didn't mention to Aline, lest it should fail. Not only did I buy

flowers, the prettiest and most expensive I could find (worthy of Barrie

or Mrs. Bal), but a box of sweets, another of Scotch shortbread, a few

cairngorm brooches, and amethyst and silver thistles picked up at

random, and a copy of Aline's and my last book which I found (well

displayed) on the station book-stall. When Aline sees only one copy she

will not buy it, as she thinks it a pity the book should disappear from

public view; but this was an occasion of importance, and I didn't

hesitate to pluck the last fruit from the bough.

When Mrs. James, Barrie, and Somerled arrived (Vedder being left in

charge of the car) there was I waiting, laden with offerings. I stuck to

the party till the end, waving my farewell as the train slowly moved

out, and then I summoned up courage (or impudence, depending on the

point of view) to ask if Somerled would take me back. "I walked here," I

said, "so as to do my little shopping for Mrs. James, and I came so fast

I've hardly got my breath back."

I was prepared for some excuse to keep me out of the car; but I wronged

Somerled. If any one looked disappointed it was Barrie, not he. He said,

"Certainly; with pleasure," and there was nothing in his voice to

contradict the courtesy of his words.

Thus, with surprising ease, I robbed him of the five minutes alone with

Barrie which he had planned. And though she sat in front with him--as

she had come, perhaps--and I was alone in my glory behind, they could

have no private conversation.

When I went up to bid Aline good-bye (we were starting soon for

Linlithgow and Stirling), I told her of my small triumph; but it gave

her no great pleasure.

"How do we know what he said to the girl going to the train?" she asked

suspiciously. "If there's anything up, it's certain that James woman is

in it. I'm sure she's warned Ian against you and me as well as Mrs. Bal.

She's as shrewd as a gimlet in her own funny way. You've remarked that

yourself. And she worships Ian, and thinks Barrie a little angel

abandoned in a wicked world. So if Ian wanted to talk, he wouldn't mind

Mrs. James. You'd better keep your eyes open this week, and notice

whether the girl seems dreamy and absent-minded, as if she expected

something to happen--something they may have arranged between them this

morning."

I assured Aline that I needed no urging to keep my eyes on Barrie. She

then told me for the second time that she intended joining our party as

soon as Somerled left Edinburgh to follow us, as--she thought--he surely

would. "He wouldn't have gone a step while that girl was here with Mrs.

Bal," she exclaimed, almost fiercely, "but in spite of all he's said

about seeing old landmarks and looking up old friends, he'll be off

after you when you've taken Barrie away. Anyhow, I'm going to see

something of him while he's here if I can, for we are friends! He's

supposed to have forgiven me, and he can't refuse to come and cheer up

the invalid. I shall do the very best I can for myself--and when I find

he means to be off I shall mention casually, as a kind of coincidence,

that I'm going too, the same day, to join you; that you've wired or

something, and that Maud Vanneck and her husband have accepted an

invitation from Morgan Bennett to visit his sister, at that Round House

Mrs. Bal talked of. Perhaps Ian will offer to take me with him. I do

hope so. But I can't ask."

As a matter of fact, poor Aline had racked her brains how to dispose of

the married Vannecks when she should be ready to take her place in

Blunderbore. As for George, she wished to keep and play with him, of

course, partly for her own amusement, partly for the moral effect upon

Somerled; but she didn't want to offend his brother and sister-in-law.

Still, they had to be got rid of eventually, as Blunderbore, with all

the faults of Noah's ark, has not the ark's accommodation for man and

beast. It was a happy thought to angle for an invitation, through Mrs.

Bal, for a few days at the Round House, as Maud Vanneck particularly

desired to see "Scottish life in a private family"; and it didn't occur

to her that a shooting-lodge hired by an American millionaire would not

be the ideal way of accomplishing her object.

Mrs. Bal was not out of her room when we were ready to start, at eleven,

so I did not see her again; but the plainest, oldest, and carrotiest of

the three red-headed maids primly accompanied Barrie to the hotel door

with hand-luggage. By this time Blunderbore was puffing heavily in

feigned eagerness to be off, and Salomon, its owner and chauffeur,

shabby and sulky as usual, was giving the car a few last oily caresses

which should have been bestowed long ago in the privacy of the garage.

Have I forgotten to mention in these rambling notes that Somerled's

Vedder regards our Salomon with a silent yet plainly visible contempt,

akin to nausea? Whenever they happen to be thrown together for a few

minutes I see the smart-liveried Vedder criticizing with his mysterious

eyes the mean features of the weedy Salomon; his weak face with the

curious, splay mouth that falls far apart in speaking, almost as if the

jaw were broken; his old cloth cap, and his thin, short figure loosely

wrapped in a long, linen dust coat. Neither Aline nor I have had the

courage to remonstrate with Salomon on his get up, but when Vedder

regards him I burn with the desire to discharge the creature and his

car, despite our contract for a month.

Barrie and I being on the spot, we could have got off, if the

Vannecks--invariably late--had not been missing. In desperation I dashed

into the hotel to look for them, and returned to find Somerled deep in

conversation with Barrie, who was in the car. I had left her standing in

the hotel doorway, with Mrs. Bal's maid: so Somerled in some way must

have caused that maid to disappear, and had then forestalled me by

helping Barrie into my car, tucking her comfortably in with the prettier

of my two rugs.

I was just in time to hear him say "we shall meet"--but where and when

the meeting was to be, I did not know. That was the last of him for the

moment, however, as I had secured the two Vannecks, and we lumbered off

along the good, clear road to Linlithgow. Now it was "up to me" to make

my running with Barrie.

I like driving, though in traffic I am secretly nervous; but as

Blunderbore provides no convenient perch for the chauffeur, and as

Salomon trusts no man except himself, he took the wheel, and I was free

to sit behind with my three guests.

I'd been wondering what Barrie's mood would be, for I felt in my bones

that she was coming with us much against her will. She had not wanted to

leave Edinburgh, and I was sure that she could only have resigned

herself to doing so with Somerled and his Gray Dragon. I asked myself

whether she guessed, or whether Mrs. James had put it into her head,

that Aline and I had combined against what the girl no doubt believed to

be her "interests." I thought it not improbable that she would openly

show her distaste for the trip. As we went on, however, I began to

realize that Barrie had changed subtly in the days since meeting her

mother. She seemed suddenly to have grown up, to have become a woman.

Was it the heart-breaking disappointment Mrs. Bal's reception had given

her? Or was it the five proposals of marriage flung at her head by those

mad young men who were now--thank goodness!--being left behind us, to

"dree their own wierds?" Or was it something quite different--something

which she and the heather moon alone knew?

In any case, she was quiet, even dignified in her youthful way, very

polite and agreeable to the Vannecks and to me. I might have flattered

myself that she was happy enough, and glad of my society, if I hadn't

reflected that to sulk visibly would have been to blame Mrs. Bal.

Already I knew that loyalty was one of Barrie's everyday virtues.

Barbara could do no wrong!

While the road (though good, and historic every step of the way)

remained unalluring to the eye, we chatted about Edinburgh, Barrie

rejoicing in having seen as much as she had before leaving the town. She

had browsed a little among the thrilling shops of Princes Street. With

one eye, so to speak, cocked up at the towering Castle Rock, with the

other she had scanned the gardens, Scott's monument, and everything else

worth seeing; then, with a sudden pounce, she had concentrated her gaze

on immense plate glass windows displaying Scottish jewellery, Scottish

books, Scottish cakes, and (to her) irrelevant Scottish tartans. Even

without need of them, their witching attraction had hypnotized her to

buy many of these things.

"I don't know exactly what I shall do with them," she said; "but I'm

glad I've got them all, and I wish I had more!"

It was Mrs. James who had been with her in her triumphal progress

through Princes Street; but it was I who had escorted her the whole

wonderful, sordid, glorious, pitiful length of the old High Street, the

Royal Mile of gorgeous ghosts. I had been there to see her face as she

caught glimpses of dark wynds where long ago men had fought to the death

and helped make history, where now colourful yet faded rags hang like

ancient banners, from iron frames, giving a fantastic likeness to side

streets of Naples: I had pointed out to her the stones which marked the

place where famous ones had murdered or been murdered, or had sought

sanctuary from murder. I had taken her all over the house of John Knox.

Together we had admired the oak carving in the room where he ate his

simple meals; and together we looked from the little window whence he

had poured his burning floods of eloquence upon the heads of the crowd

below. In the curiosity shop downstairs I had bought her a silver Heart

of Midlothian. She had stared into the rich dark shadows whence start

out, spirit-like, faces of old oil pictures, faces of old clocks, faces

of old marble busts; and she had been so charmed by the soft voice of

the young saleswoman, whose flute-like tones would lure gold from a

miser's pocket, that she would have collected half the things in the

shop if she had had the money. I wanted to give her bits of old

jewellery and miniatures of Queen Mary and Prince Charlie which she

fancied, but she would accept only the silver Heart of Midlothian, which

cost no more than a few shillings; and to-day, as I took her away from

Edinburgh, she was not wearing the little ornament, as I had hoped she

might.

As the road grew prettier, we tore our thoughts away from Edinburgh, and

gave them to the highway illumined by history. At least, Barrie gave

hers, while I lent as many of mine as I could spare from her. And I had

to keep my wits about me, if I were to live up to the regulation of

Know-All I'd evidently attained in her eyes.

In Linlithgow we expected to see at once the famous palace where Queen

Mary was born, but nothing was visible in what the French would call the

_place_, except the Town House, a new statue, and a graceful copy of an

old fountain. We had to turn up an unpromising side street to find at

last a beautiful little gateway between dumpy octagonal towers, such as

the old masters loved to put in the background of their pictures.

Passing through was like walking into one of those pictures, getting

round the hidden corner as one always longs to do on canvas. Before our

eyes rose majestically the colossal shell of a palace, with carved

golden walls, a vast courtyard, cyclopean round towers, and wonderful

windows full of sky and dreams. Close by was the noble church where

James IV had his vision warning him not to go to war with England.

Somerled had talked to Barrie about Linlithgow, doubtless in the hope of

making her think of him when there. He had called it the "finest

domestic architectural ruin in all Scotland," and told her of Lord

Rosebery's suggestion to restore and make of it a great national museum.

I was glad for every reason that Somerled wasn't with us, and, for one,

because he would have overshadowed me entirely with his knowledge of

architecture, which he contrives to use picturesquely, not ponderously.

All I could do was to rhapsodize in a way Barrie likes well enough when

she can get nothing better, painting for her a rough word-picture of the

palace in days when rich gilding still glittered on the quaint wall

statues, when crystal jets spouted from the lovely fountain, green with

moss now as with thick verdigris--when knights in armour rode into the

quadrangle to be welcomed by fair ladies, while varlets led tired horses

to distant stables. Those were the days when the Livingstons were

keepers of the palace for the King, long before they lost their lands

and titles for love of Prince Charlie; days when the memory of Will

Binnock was honoured still, that "stout earle" who helped wrest

Linlithgow from English Edward's men by smuggling soldiers into the

palace precincts, concealed in a load of hay.

We wandered almost sadly through the splendid rooms where Queen Mary

first saw the light, the week her father died: through "the King's

room," with its secret staircase under a trap door, and its view over a

blue lake where swans floated like winged water-lilies. Then, when we

had bought a specially bound copy of "Marmion" (which ought to be read

at Linlithgow), and post cards and souvenirs that seemed important at

the moment and useless afterward, we took the road to Stirling.

There was no time to stop in Falkirk (when is there ever time to stop in

motoring?), for the car was running unusually well for Blunderbore. So

instead of pausing to meditate over battle scenes, as Vanneck pretended

he wished to do, we sailed through the long, straight street which seems

practically to constitute the town. Here we had almost our first glimpse

of industrial Scotland as opposed to picturesque Scotland, which was in

these August days becoming the playground of Britain and America.

Falkirk is a coalfield as well as a battlefield, and the murk of

collieries and iron works darkens the sky as once did the smoke of

gunpowder: but the place holds its old interest for the mind; and not

far off we came to the Wallace Monument; then to Bannockburn. Because of

Barrie's love for the Bruce, we got out and walked to the Bore Stone

where he stood to direct the battle so fatal to the English. After this

we were close to St. Ninian's, and to Stirling, though the day was still

young; but there was lots to see, and I wanted to go on before dusk, to

spend the night in Crieff. We lunched at one of those nice old-fashioned

hotels whose heraldic names alone are worth the money; and as we started

on foot to walk through the ancient town and mount to its high crown,

the Castle, I began to appreciate Aline's arrangements for my benefit.

Maud Vanneck being a model of wifely jealousy, kept Fred to herself, and

Barrie was my companion. This was delightful. No such good thing had

come to me since making her acquaintance. On the way up the quaint,

steep street, there came a shower of rain, and I had to shelter her with

my umbrella. It was an umbrella of blessedly mean proportions, which

meant that she must keep close to my side, and I said, "Come what may I

shall have this and a few other things to remember!"

Up in the Castle, we two decided that we had after all made a mistake in

calling Edinburgh Castle Scotland's heart. Here was that organ, and we

could almost feel it throbbing under our feet. We forgot that we had

selected several other hearts for Scotland. Here was the right one at

last!

What a view to look out upon, with the One Girl by your side! Over our

heads and far away, clouds turned the rolling mountains to snowpeaks

that dazzled in the sun, and under our eyes seemed to lie all Scotland,

spread out like a vast brocaded mantle of many colours: the plain of the

Forth, the Ochil hills and the hills of Fife; the purple peaks round

Loch Lomond, and here and there a glitter of water like broken glass on

a floor of gold. Ten counties we could see, and eight great battlefields

which helped to make Scotland what it is. The horizon was carved in

shapes of azure--strange, wild, mountainous shapes; and the noble heads

of Ben Lomond, Ben Ledi, and Ben A'an were laurelled and jewelled for us

by memories of Scott.

Sitting where Queen Mary sat on her velvet cushions, and looking through

her peephole in the thick stone wall, I was almost irresistibly tempted

to make love to Barrie. My heart so went out to her that it seemed she

must respond: and the Vannecks had wandered to another part of the

battlements; but she kept me to my task of cicerone. I had to answer a

dozen questions. I had to tell her about Agricola forging his chain of

forts across the narrow land between the Clyde, and the Forth "that

bridles the wild Highlander." She would be satisfied with nothing less

than the unabridged stories of Edward I's siege of this "gray bulwark of

the North," the murder of the powerful Douglas by his treacherous host

King James II; the building of and the mysterious curse upon Mar's Work,

and twenty other human documents not half so moving, had she but known

it, as the story of Basil Norman's first and only love. Once or twice I

thought she guessed that I wished to speak of myself and her, and that

she deliberately held me at arm's length, like a young person of the

world dealing with an ineligible at the end of her second season. I

almost hated King Edward, and more especially Agricola!

Then, worst of all, before we had half finished our tour of the Castle

and its wonders, rain began to fall out of one cloud stationed directly

over our heads in the midst of a sun-bright sky. I could almost have

believed that Somerled in spite had sent it after us, like a wet

blood-hound to track us down. We took shelter in the room where the

Douglas was murdered; and who could make love against such a background?

Not I: though perhaps gay King James V might have been equal to it. One

does not hear that any ghost dogged his footsteps as he crept joyously

in disguise out from that dark little chamber into the subterranean

passage, which led the "Guid man of Ballangeich" to his Haroun

Al-raschid adventures in the night.

* * * * *

The next few days live in my memory as dreams live. They were beautiful.

They would have been more beautiful if I could have flattered myself

that Barrie was learning to care for me in the way she might have cared

for Somerled, if we had left them in peace. But she was always the

same--except that, as the world grew more enchanting in beauty and

poetic associations, she blossomed into a sweet expansiveness, losing

the reserve in which she had been veiled when first we started.

It ought to have been ideal, this moving from scene to scene with the

one girl I ever wanted for my own, since I was thirteen and worshipped a

tank mermaid in green spangles. That was the hard part! It ought to have

been ideal and--it wasn't. I should think a rather well meaning Saracen

chieftain who had captured a Christian maiden might have felt somewhat

as I felt from day to day. He had got her. She couldn't escape from him

and his fortress; but, even with her hand in his, she contrived to elude

him.

So it was with me. Old Blunderbore went well on the whole, not counting

a few minor ailments of second childhood which attacked him occasionally

when he saw a stiff hill ahead, or when he had heard me say I was in a

hurry. The Vannecks were perfection as chaperons, not through

supernatural tact and unselfishness, but because Maud feared the effect

upon Fred of too much Barrie. She laid herself out to charm her husband.

Never an "I told you so!" Never a nagging word or look. She chatted to

Fred in the car, and saw sights with him out of the car. This, she said,

was almost like a second honeymoon. But of the heather moon she had

never heard. It was ours--Barrie's and mine: yet I could not induce the

girl to speak of it. For all she would say, she might have forgotten its

existence. Always, especially when the heather moon tried to give us its

golden blessing, an invisible presence seemed to stand between us, as if

Somerled had sent his astral body to keep us apart.

As to Somerled in the flesh, there was a mystery at this time. To me at

Perth came a telegram from Aline saying:

"S. has left his car and chauffeur here and gone away without a

word to any one. Has he come after you? Wire immediately."

I obeyed, replying:

"Seen and heard nothing of S. Will let you have all news. Hope you

will do the same by me. Am sending you our route, but suppose you

will arrive in few days."

Her answer came to St. Andrews, at a jolly, golfing sort of hotel where

I ought to have been as happy as the day was long.

"As S. has not joined you prefer stop on here. Eyes not well yet.

Mr. Bennett's sister has influenza. She would prefer Maud and Fred

visit Round House later--say toward end of next week."

I had no faith in that attack of influenza. The microbe was probably

hatched in conversation between Aline and Mrs. Bal, who had by this time

become tremendous allies. My theory was that Aline, knowing Somerled not

to be near Barrie, had settled down to enjoy the fleeting moment. She

might not be happy, but I could understand that the society of Mrs. Bal

(who evidently wanted her) was preferable to motoring with a brother,

and a girl of whom she was jealous.

The same day came a long expensive wire to Barrie from her mother:

"So sorry darling but unfortunately must put you off. Don't come

first of Glasgow week. Wait till Saturday, arriving late afternoon

or evening. Mrs. West says her friends and brother will like

keeping you till then so you needn't worry. We can have nice visit

together later and settle everything for you in some delightful

way. Making plans now. Don't forget you for a moment. Best reasons

for delay. Will explain when we meet. Sending you letter with

little present of money. Don't stint yourself. Write often. Tell me

all that interests you. Ever your loving Barbara."

"Why do you suppose she can't have me the first of the week?" Barrie

asked piteously, when she had shown this message.

"I can't say, I'm sure," I cautiously replied. This was literally true.

I could not say: but I could guess. And a letter from Aline which came

two or three days later, confirmed my Sherlockian deductions.

"My DEAR OLD BOY" [she wrote]: "I was so glad to get your

telegram, and meant to have written at once, but waited on second

thoughts to have a little more news. It is a relief to know that

Ian hasn't followed that girl. Of course I feel it as much for your

sake as my own, for he is a dangerous rival to any man. It _is_ odd

where he can have gone; though he may turn up here again any day,

as he has left his car and chauffeur. If he had wanted to be nice,

he might have offered me the use of both while he was away; but I

suppose he blames me for lending myself to Mrs. Bal's wishes about

Barrie. Very unreasonable of him, as you have a perfect right to do

what you like with the car you've hired, and if Mrs. Bal didn't

want her daughter to see too much of _him_, what fault is it of

mine?

"I try to amuse myself as well as I can and forget my worries,

however, and Mrs. Bal and Morgan Bennett are being very nice. I

don't think he's proposed yet, or she would have told me, for we're

great friends; but she's pretty sure to land him before he leaves

for America, as he is to do the end of her Glasgow week, for a

short business trip. I expect to be asked to congratulate them the

night before he sails! What a good thing for her and _every one_

that the Vannecks can stand by you longer than we planned. I think,

unless you wire me that Ian has appeared upon the scene, I'll stay

with Mrs. Bal for her Glasgow week, as she has invited me, and

then, when the Vannecks go to the Round House, you can bring Barrie

back to her mother."

This explained Mrs. Bal's "best of reasons."

Days went on, and Somerled did not come to our part of the world, which

was by this time the heart of the Highlands; but I felt in my bones that

Barrie was hearing from him, writing to him; that she knew what I did

not know, the mystery of his absence. Of course I could have found out

if she were receiving letters from him, for Somerled's handwriting is

unmistakable; but villain or no villain, I had to draw the line

somewhere, and I drew it at spying upon her.

Aline did go to Glasgow with Mrs. Bal. She wrote to tell me how, with

Morgan Bennett in his biggest motor-car, "_much_ higher powered and

smarter than poor Ian's," she and Mrs. Bal and George Vanneck had sped

away from Edinburgh on Sunday morning early, had a look at their rooms

in Glasgow, and dashed on to Arrochar, where they all stopped till

Monday afternoon.

"Such an exquisite road!" [said Aline]. "You would have loved it.

High green bank on one side, with cataracts of bracken delicate as

maidenhair; dark rocks, wrapped in velvet moss. Trees holding up

screens of green lace between your eyes and the blue water of the

loch. Pebbles white and round as pearls, or silver coins dropped by

fairies in a big "flit." That's one of _your_ similes! Grass

running down to the edge of the water, and full of bluebells. Water

the colour of drowned wallflowers. I don't believe your Highland

lochs can be prettier or more idyllic, though this is so close to

Glasgow.

"We have had a day going through the Kyles of Bute, too--the same

party: and a marvellous run along the shores of the Clyde to

Skelmorlie. Such red rocks there, and even the sand red. There was

a pink haze over everything, like a perpetual sunset. I'm not sure

which was better, that, or a trip to Crinan. The dearest little

place at the end of the Crinan canal--just a flower-draped hotel,

and a sea-wall and a lighthouse, with a distant murmur of

'Corrievrechan's tortured roar,' mingled with the crying of gulls.

What a place for you and Barrie to spend your honeymoon! You see, I

speak as if it were certain. Anyhow, I'm sure it all depends on

yourself. _Courage, mon brave_!"

But that is exactly the quality which the villain of the piece lacks at

present.