that he didn’t have the great passion for it that he had felt at the auction. That’s what he said, anyway. ”
“In other words, altruism,” said Isabel.
“Precisely,” said Peter.
Susie had said nothing about this; now she joined in. “But if that’s the way he thought about it, then why would he have bid against Isabel at the auction? It must have been apparent then that she wanted it quite badly.”
“Perhaps altruism takes time to emerge,” said Isabel. “We 1 0 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h often think differently about things some time after the event. I certainly find that—don’t you?”
Susie was not convinced. “That may happen sometimes,”
she said. “But I don’t have that feeling about this. I think that there’s something wrong.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Peter. “Walter Buie is very straight-forward. He’s exactly the sort of person who would do this.
He’s . . .”
“A bit old-fashioned,” said Susie. “I don’t mean to be unkind, but he’s what some people would call old Edinburgh.
Just a bit old-fashioned.”
Old Edinburgh: Isabel knew exactly what that meant. And she used to laugh at it, or feel irritated by it, but now that the world was so different she was not so sure. Old Edinburgh had been so sedate, prissy even—like a maiden aunt—and it had been an easy target. But had the correction gone too far? Old-fashioned manners, courtesies, had been swept away everywhere, it seemed, to be replaced by indifference, by coolness.
And yet that had not made people any more free; in fact, the opposite, surely, had happened, as the public space became more frightening, more dangerous.
“It’s kind of him,” she said. It was the charitable interpreta-tion of his gesture and it made Peter nod his head in agreement.
“I think you’re right,” he said. “And I also think that you need to accept—if you still want the painting. I think that it’s very important to be able to accept things. People often know how to give, but they often don’t know how to accept graciously.”
Isabel looked at him, and Peter blushed. “I didn’t mean you, of course,” he said hurriedly. “I’m sure you know how to accept.”
T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S
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Isabel was not so sure about that; now that she thought of what Peter said about accepting, she realised that she probably was not very good at it. She felt guilty when people gave her presents, because she did not like the thought that somebody had spent money on her. Where did that come from? She thought that perhaps it was a result of not wanting others to be put out on her behalf, which was ridiculous. And it made her remember the story of a Scottish government minister who had been so well-mannered that, when allocated a female driver, he had insisted on opening the car door for her. People had laughed, but it said a lot for the moral quality of the minister himself; it was the opposite of the sort of arrogance that one sometimes saw in people who had found themselves in positions of power.
She should accept Walter Buie’s offer, but did she still want the painting? Peter noticed her hesitation.
“Don’t take it if you don’t want it,” he said. “People change their minds. You can change yours.”
“I don’t know,” said Isabel. “I really don’t know.”
“Do you want to look at it?” asked Peter. “Walter said that he’d be very happy for you to take a look at it. We could go round and see him now.”
“But it would be awkward if I wanted to say no.”
“Not at all. You can turn him down if you don’t want it anymore. Just tell him that you’ve changed your mind.”
She was not certain, but Susie said that she would look after Charlie if they wanted to walk round to Walter’s house. Isabel thought for a moment and then said yes. She was intrigued by Walter Buie and wanted to know a bit more about him; a guilty feeling, because she knew that she should not be so inquisitive.
But I can’t help it, she thought; I just can’t.
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h I T WA S N OT a long walk, and the road was quite empty. “We’ll be at his gate in a moment,” said Peter, pointing down Hope Terrace. “That drive off to the right—that’s him. Walter has an old Bentley—a really old one. Sometimes you see its nose sticking out of the driveway and then the whole car emerges—it’s a wonderful sight. He goes on rallies, apparently. He tried to invite me along once but I didn’t see the point. Why go and sit around in a field with lots of other people who happen to own old Bentleys?”
It was not something that appealed to Isabel either, but she understood why people would want to be with others who share their interest. “Presumably they talk about Bentleys,” she said,
“which is fair enough. I go to conferences of philosophers.
We sit around, not in fields, admittedly, but we do sit around together.”
“Very odd,” said Peter.
They reached the driveway. A large pair of wooden gates, set in a high stone wall, prevented any access from the road, but there was a small door to the side which Peter pushed open.
Inside was a walled garden, with a greenhouse and, at the far end, an attractive Georgian house in the style of that part of town. It was built of honey-coloured stone which had weathered dark in uneven patches, giving it a not
