“You’re in pretty bad condition, old chap,” he observed. “You’ll founder on the Twelfth if you drip like this in an afternoon saunter.”
He got up and stretched himself. “Let’s go back,” he said. “There isn’t a beast or bird in the place. I am glad I came here, for it will keep us from wasting time over it.”
I followed him, still shaky and acutely disappointed. The Glen had nothing to say to him. The ring was an accident, and the Cauldshaw stock was still to find. And yet, as we walked home, I began to doubt. The Glen had been not for Douglas or Home alone, but for both. What if a Home were needed to complete the circuit?
It was a possible explanation. Besides, the extraordinary seizure which had befallen me that afternoon seemed to argue that the visit had not been meaningless. I was perfectly well and normal, and I had sat on the mound a hundred times before. Might it not be that the Glen had been stirred, and was striving to tell us its secret? Then I began to laugh, and told myself that I was a fool to treat my fancies as solid facts.
VIII
That winter was made memorable to me, and a good many others, by Virginia Dasent. The Amysforts went to Egypt, leaving her very much to her own devices. She hunted a little and spent some time in country-houses; but mostly she was to be found in London, a city for which she had an inordinate love. This was bad for Linford, who stayed devotedly in town, and being deprived of healthful exercise put on flesh and lost spirits. I found him in the club one afternoon in a very bad temper. I alone knew of his hopeless plight, and with me he did not trouble to keep up appearances.
“I get no forrarder,” he groaned. “She tolerates me as she tolerates everybody else. Lord, how I hate that kind smile of hers! She isn’t a woman, Jack. She’s an adorable sort of bird that flits about and never settles. You know the way she holds her head forward and peers away beyond you. She’s always preening for another flight.”
Love was making him a psychologist, for Miss Virginia’s maddening charm lay in just that birdlike detachment. We had become very good friends, she and I; and often of a late afternoon we talked in the Amysforts’ big ugly drawing-room. She liked me because I was interested in old things and odd bypaths, for I found that the child bubbled over with romance. A lonely girlhood in some Carolinian manor had given her fancy rich feeding. Half in a world of books, half in a world of pure dreaming, she took her airy way. She had about as much worldliness as St. Theresa, and much less worldly knowledge. Frankly, I was a little afraid for her; some day disillusion would come, and come cruelly. There was a loneliness about her, as about Linford, but it was the loneliness of a happy preoccupation. Some day those wondering eyes would find the world less marvellous, and then her heart would break. Or would she carry her fresh childlike interest undimmed to the end? I could not tell, but I argued badly for Linford’s chances. He was far too eligible—young, good-looking, preposterously rich. The man who was to win Miss Virginia’s heart, I thought, must come riding in the fearless old fashion. Linford was as romantic in the ordinary sense of the word as a Republican senator of Virginia’s native land.
That was my first impression, but I found cause to alter it slightly. As I came to know her better, new avenues opened up in her soul. She had an excellent brain, very clear, shrewd and subtle, and behind all her fancies I was aware of a solid rock of common-sense. She was not a ready talker, and never rhapsodised. Little odd phrases, a shrug and a laugh, gave the key to her whimsical world. But on a matter of prosaic fact I found her amazingly practical. More than once she offered me advice, with a little wise air which spoke of youth, but with a penetration, too, which took my breath away. I put my surprise into words. “Of course I’m practical,” she said. “I’m more than half Scotch, you know.”
I thought nothing of it at the time, for American girls have a habit of being either Scotch or early Norman. I remember asking her if she had ever been to Scotland, and she said—No: not yet. She had not had time. But some day …
I was inclined to be a little angry with both her and Linford. He went about like a sheep, a ridiculous figure of purposeless melancholy, and the deeper he sank in this mood the worse it was for his chances. As for the lady, I began to think her almost inhuman. I wondered if she were not perfectly heartless, hollow within like an Ell-woman. She seemed unconscious of the havoc she was causing everywhere. I think I would have preferred a common flirt to this unearthly aloofness. But her eyes used always to make me revise my judgments: they were so innocent and young. Some day she would awaken, I told myself. Some day the sleeping princess would be kissed into life. But I was pretty certain that, unless a miracle happened, it would be none of Linford’s doing.
It was one morning in the Park in early May that she exploded the mine under my feet. She had been riding with Linford, and turned, as I came up, to accompany me. I don’t know what they had been talking about, but her eyes were shining, her colour high, and her lips very tight.
“We have been discussing Scotch places,” she volunteered. “It is very tiresome. I wanted a place, and Mr. Linford
