Mrs. Keeling's place, lent to her much-admired authors, had a very pretty gate. It was approached from the garden way, through an arbour thickly hung with roses and honeysuckle. It seemed to Aline West, as she went alone to meet Somerled, that night distilled a special perfume in the dew-filled cups of the flowers, sweet as unspoken love. She felt that she was on the threshold of happiness. It was the first step that counted. If she met Somerled in the right spirit, with the right word and the right look ... in this perfumed star-dusk and stillness, when they had not seen each other for days ... and he knew she had been waiting here for him, thinking of him ... and he saw that she had put on the dress he liked so much on shipboard, the one she had worn the last night, when he told her his life-story ... might not the thing that she desired happen? She encouraged herself by saying, "Why not?" and reminding herself that she was an attractive woman. Lots of men had been in love with her--not the right ones, but that was a detail. Why not Ian Somerled? He was a man, after all, like others.
He was at the gate already ... she almost ran.
"Hail, the conquering hero!" she cried to him, laughing.
He opened the gate. But it was not he who came in. He was opening it for some one else--a woman, a girl, something tall and feminine, anyhow. It was wrapped in a cloak. It had a flat pancake on its head for a hat. What could it be, and mean? The idea darted into Aline's mind that there had been an accident on the way here from the station; that perhaps Somerled had nearly or quite run over this creature--or her dog--or something.
"Hello, Mrs. West!" he answered her cheerfully. "I've got to you at last, and I've brought a visitor for the night. I've given my guarantee that you'll make her welcome."
The light of Aline's joy went out like a ray of moonlight swallowed up by a marauding cloud. She did not in the least understand what had happened, or what were the obligations to which he had committed her; but in any case the lute she had tuned had a rift in it, a big, bad rift, and it could make no music to-night. She felt suddenly at her worst instead of her best, as if she had tumbled off a bank of flowers in her prettiest frock into a bog. She longed to be cold and snappy and disagreeable, as a wife may safely be to a husband when he has blundered, and as she had often been to Jim in his brief day; but Somerled was not her husband, and certainly never would be unless she minded her "p's and q's" like a good and very clever little angel with unmeltable butter in its smiling mouth. So she shrieked, "Hang it!" and even worse, with her whole heart, and said with her lips, in a charming voice, "Why, of course! I shall be delighted to welcome any friend of yours, and so will Basil. I love surprises."
It was a short arbour, and as they all three came out of it, Mrs. West and Somerled and the wrapped-up thing with the pancake hat--the chauffeur following with a suit-case--Aline's eyes made the most of the starlight, that she might read the mystery and know the worst. The worst was very bad. Under the stars the girl looked a radiant beauty, and so young, so young! How was the man going to account for her? Was there still hope?
"I told you what Mrs. West would say!" exclaimed Somerled. "This is Miss MacDonald, a daughter of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald."
"Oh!" said Aline. "How interesting! I'm delighted to meet her." She held out her hand, and the girl, who had not yet spoken a word, put hers into it.
There was no real reason why "I'm delighted to meet her" wasn't precisely the nicest thing to say in the circumstances, but somehow as a greeting it hadn't quite the right ring, Aline herself felt. And she was sorry, because she wanted to be entirely satisfactory to Somerled in every way, in all situations, no matter how trying, and thus perhaps save the ship. Why not? Many men of thirty-four were bored with girls, and Somerled must have been bored by them already in their thousands. Still, something that lay deep down within herself was sad and anxious. A daughter of the beautiful and almost notorious Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald! If he weren't in love with the girl, perhaps he had had a desperate love affair with the mother.
"I'd no idea that Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald had any children," Aline went on, as she shook a supple, satiny hand which wore no glove.
"She's only got me," said the girl, "and she doesn't know she's got me yet. At least, she may have forgotten."
Somerled broke out laughing. "You'll puzzle Mrs. West," he said, with a good-natured, amused, and proprietary air which stabbed Aline's feelings as with little sharp pins. No, whatever else he might be, he was not bored. "We'll have to do a lot of explaining by and by, indoors."
"Oh, yes," Barrie agreed. And then, plunging into her task, "He found me in the railway station. I've run away from home, and he wouldn't let me go to a hotel. Don't you really mind? Because----"
"Of course I don't mind." Aline rose bravely to the occasion. "It sounds wildly romantic, like most things that contrive to happen to Mr. Somerled, although he says he's ceased to believe in romance. Have you known each other long?"
"Only to-night," replied Barrie. And Somerled began to see that, as he had said, there certainly would have to be a lot of explaining. It almost seemed complicated. Nevertheless, he felt that he had done the only thing possible, and so far from having regrets, he had a curious sense of elation that was boyish. He wanted to see what was going to happen next. He felt as if by some rather nice accident he had been inveigled into playing a new game.
"I've known Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald ever since her first famous tour through America some ten or twelve years ago," he said. "You'll be amused, Mrs. West, to hear in what a queer way I ran across her daughter to-night."
"Yes, indeed, no doubt," answered Aline, as they walked toward the house. She was forcing herself to cheer up a little. His tone in speaking of the actress didn't sound like the tone of a man in love. And men of his type, who had been run after and spoilt, surely didn't fall in love at sight. It was going to prove no more than an annoying incident, this bringing home of a strange girl, who mightn't be so desperately pretty, anyhow, in a bright light. To-morrow the creature would be packed off to her mother or some one; and in a day or two more Somerled and Basil and she--Aline--would start off on their heavenly trip as if nothing had happened.
But Barrie was even prettier in the lamplight of the hall and drawing-room than she had been in the silver vagueness of starlight. Aline tried to think that she was the weirdest frump in the world, and absolutely impossible as a fascinator; but she knew that the weirdness would be superficial to the eye of Man. The thing was to hurry her away in all her frumpiness.
Aline brought them into the low-ceiled drawing-room which, with her own hands, she had made beautiful with many flowers in honour of Somerled's coming. She and Basil had been here for several days, while Somerled attended to business in London, and she had been looking forward to her friend's comments upon this drawing-room. She had imagined his exclaiming: "You've made it look like yourself!" But the girl had spoiled her effects. Somerled merely said, "What a pretty, old-fashioned room! The green wall is a becoming background." And when he uttered this comment it was at his vagabond he looked, not at his hostess.
Barrie was rather remarkable against that green. She glanced around, evidently in rapt admiration of everything she saw. Her eyes were very bright and big, her young, red lips a little apart. "Silly thing, gaping with her mouth open!" Aline relieved her feelings by saying to herself.
"Oh, it's so beautiful here, and Mrs. West's dress is so lovely," the girl said; "it makes me feel I must take off this horrid cloak and tam, not to be a blot. May I take them off?" she asked Aline, turning frank admiration on her, as one turns on a searchlight.
Aline would have liked to think of some reason for saying "no," such as a draught, or an immediate departure for upstairs; but even if the excuse had been valid enough, it would have been of no use, for without awaiting permission, which she took as a matter of course, the weird creature had whipped off her green pancake and was throwing back her cloak. "Not that my dress isn't nearly as bad," she apologized, sighing. "I have never seen such a pretty room as this."
It was really nothing wonderful by way of a room: a little oak panelling; faded green brocade walls; some nice old pastels; furniture of the Stuart period; pretty bright chintz; a few old Chelsea figures on the mantel and in a cabinet; quantities of red and white roses in Chinese bowls. Aline ached to snap, "If you've never seen anything as pretty as this, where have you lived?" But that was not the way of Somerled's ideal woman. It would have been better if the stupid thing had praised Mrs. West's looks, thus riveting Somerled's eyes and appreciation; but all her silly admiration seemed to be for the dress and the room. Little brute! Incapable of calling another female pretty, when a man was present. Just what one would expect of an actress's daughter, especially that actress, if half one heard of "Mrs. Bal" were true.
Aline was inclined to believe that Barrie MacDonald had purposely posed herself under a hanging lamp, so as to show off her hair when suddenly uncovered. The daughter of an actress, with the dramatic instinct in her blood! But the idea did not seem to occur to Somerled, experienced as he was, disillusioned as he thought himself. At least there was nothing cynical in the expression of his face.
"Do let me help you with your cloak," she said to Barrie, dimly hoping that the man would contrast her exquisitely corseted figure in its dress by Lucille with the crude, untrained outlines clothed in blue serge. She was not so tall as Barrie as they stood together, she discovered, and she wanted the girl to sit down. "You must both have something to eat," she went on, pulling the old-fashioned bead embroidered bell rope; and tears were close and hot behind her eyes, remembering how she had planned the little supper for herself and Somerled--and Basil, who hardly counted. "Or would you like to see your rooms first? One shall be made ready directly for Miss MacDonald. I suppose her luggage has come in with yours?"
"I have only a--a parcel," Barrie meekly confessed, feeling three times a worm, even a Laidly Worm. It was odd how this sweet-faced blond woman, with blue eyes and a halo of fair hair and a gentle smile, contrived--of course without meaning it--to make one feel the meanest, shabbiest thing cumbering a beautiful world! "I wonder if I'm going to like men better than women?" she thought.
"Ah, a parcel," repeated Aline daintily, as an incredibly neat maid answered the call of the beaded bell. "Moore," Mrs. West went on, "this young lady, Miss MacDonald, will spend the night. I think she might have the room of the red Chinese chintz at the end of my corridor. Please have it made ready as soon as possible, and----"
"Oh, is your name Muir?" exclaimed Barrie delightedly. "That's the name of our housekeeper at Hillard House. Perhaps you're related, though I never heard of Mrs. Muir having any daughters or nieces."
The maid, deftly taking the cue from her mistress pro tem., put into her impersonal gaze the coldness of a whole glacier as her eyes moved from defect to defect of Barrie's costume. The tone of that "Ah, a parcel," was unmistakable, and she knew exactly what Mrs. West thought of Miss MacDonald. "I am sorry, miss, but I do not think, I am related to your housekeeper," she replied; and Aline determined to give her a blouse or half a dozen handkerchiefs. She really was a most intelligent person. So intelligent was she that she knew by the feeling in her bones exactly how much Mrs. West wanted to get Miss MacDonald out of the drawing-room and into the Chinese room, which would be the most unbecoming in the house to a red-haired person. "I can take the young lady up now, if you wish, madam," she continued, "for the room is in order--only to bring towels and hot water."
Barrie looked pleadingly at Somerled. "I am quite clean," she said. "I washed at home before I started. And I'm so hungry."
Her appeal to him as a tried and trusted friend waked up something in Somerled which he had not known existed. Whatever it was stirred and was soft and warm in the region of his heart.
"I'm sure Mrs. West doesn't want to send you away," he said. And he could have said nothing more tactless. "I, too, am comparatively spotless," he went on, protecting his protégée by putting himself on her level, "and superlatively hungry. We shall both be delighted to accept your invitation to supper." He laughed, and Barrie gave him a grateful, understanding glance. He felt as if she were a wonderfully pretty doll which had somehow come alive after he had bought and rescued it from an upper shelf in an unworthy toy-shop--a dear, delightful, untamed doll which now belonged to him; and he was not sure that he wanted to let anybody else play with it until he had begun to tire a little of its tricks himself. Of course he'd tire in time; but there would not be time for tiring, because the doll must soon be packed off and sent to its mother.
"Tell Mr. Norman that Mr. Somerled has come, and that we're ready for supper," said Aline to Moore. The eyes of mistress and maid met, and for an instant they were social equals.
Basil Norman was a man who had odd thoughts and enjoyed them. For this reason he did not weary of his own society, for he never quite knew what he would think next. When he came to the door and pushed it open, he half believed that he was dreaming the tall, beautiful, badly dressed girl with torrents of red hair. People in real life did not wear their hair in torrents. Perhaps she was a ghost who went with the house, and he had never happened to see her before. He wondered if the others had noticed her yet.
"How are you, Somerled?" he inquired, not taking his eyes off the apparition. It was looking at him, too, almost anxiously, as if it were wondering whether he would be friend or foe; but, of course, it did not speak.
"All right. Very glad to see you both again--and to be here," Somerled answered.
"Miss MacDonald," announced Aline, thin-lipped.
"So you have a name?" said Basil to Barrie. "Was it given to you in dreamland or the spirit-world?" Then she knew at once that he was not a foe, but a friend.
"Fairyland," she replied, beaming on him. "I was in fairyland to-day. If I hadn't been there, I shouldn't be here." She could answer her own late question now, with practical certainty. She was going to like men better than women! Her mother, of course, would be an exception.
