“All you have to do is to keep still for the next few minutes,” he informed her in a most matter-of-fact voice.
Evelyn did not move, though had he shown any sign of self-conscious hesitation she would at once have shaken herself loose. He was conscious of a thrill and a certain stirring of his blood, but this, he decided, must be sternly ignored, and his task occupied most of his attention. It was not an easy one, and he stumbled once or twice, but he accomplished it and set the girl down safely on firmer ground.
“Now,” he said, “there’s only the drop to the dale, but we must endeavour to keep out of the beck.”
His voice and air were unembarrassed, though he was breathless, and Evelyn fancied that in this and the incident of the jacket he had revealed the forceful, natural manners of the West. It was the first glimpse she had had of them, though she had watched for one, and she was not displeased. The man had merely done what was most advisable, with practical sense.
A little farther on, a shoot of falling water swept out of the mist above and came splashing down a crag, spread out in frothing threads. It flowed across their path, reunited in a deep gully which they sprang across, and then fell tumultuously into the beck, which was now ten or twelve feet below on one side of them. They clung to the rock as they traced it downwards, stepping cautiously from ledge to ledge. At times a stone plunged into the mist beneath them, and Vane grasped the girl’s arm or held out a steadying hand, but he was never fussy or needlessly concerned. When she wanted help, it was offered at the right moment; but that was all, and she thought that had she been alarmed, which was not the case, her companion’s manner would have been more comforting than persistent solicitude. He was, she decided, one who could be relied upon in an emergency.
Though caution was still necessary, the next stage of the journey was easier, and by and by they reached a winding dale. They followed it downwards, splashing through water part of the time, and at length came into sight of a cluster of little houses standing between a river and a big fir wood.
“It must be getting on towards evening,” said Evelyn. “Mopsy and Carroll probably went down the Ridge, and as it runs out lower down the valley, they’ll be almost at home.”
“It’s six o’clock,” said Vane, glancing at his watch. “You can’t walk home in the rain, and it’s a long while since lunch. If Adam Bell and his wife are still at the ‘Golden Fleece,’ we’ll get something to eat there and borrow you dry clothes. He’ll drive us home afterwards.”
Evelyn made no objections. She was very wet and beginning to feel weary, and they were some distance from home. She restored him his jacket, and a few minutes later they entered an old hostelry which, like many others among these hills, was a farm as well as an inn. The landlady, who recognised Vane with pleased surprise, took Evelyn away with her, and afterwards provided Vane with some of her husband’s clothes. Then she lighted a fire, and when she had laid out a meal in the guest-room, Evelyn came in, attired in a dress of lilac print.
“It’s Maggie Bell’s,” she explained demurely. “Her mother’s things were rather large. Adam is away at a sheep auction, and they have only the trap he went in, but they expect him back in an hour or so.”
“Then we must wait,” said Vane. “Worse misfortunes have befallen me.”
They made an excellent meal, and then Vane drew up a wicker chair to the fire for Evelyn and sat down opposite to her. Outside, the rain dripped from the mossy flagstone eaves, and the song of the river stole in monotonous cadence into the room.
Evelyn was silent and Vane said nothing for a while. He had been in the air all day, and though this was nothing new to him, he was content to sit lazily still and leave the opening of conversation to his companion. In the meanwhile it was pleasant to glance towards her now and then. The pale-tinted dress became her, and he felt that the room would have looked less cheerful had she been away.
The effect she had on him was difficult to analyse, though he lazily tried. She appealed to him by the grace of her carriage, the poise of her head, her delicate colouring, and the changing lights in her eyes; but behind these points something stronger and deeper was expressed through them. He fancied she possessed qualities he had not hitherto encountered, which would become more precious when they were fully understood. He thought of her as wholesome in mind; one who sought for the best; but she was also endowed with an ethereal something that could not be defined.
Then a simile struck him: she was like the snow that towers high into the empyrean in British Columbia; in which he was wrong, for there was warm human passion in the girl, though it was sleeping yet. By and by, he told himself, he was getting absurdly sentimental, and he instinctively fumbled for his pipe and stopped. Evelyn noticed this and smiled.
“You needn’t hesitate,” she said. “The Dene is redolent of cigars, and Gerald smokes everywhere when he is at home.”
“Is he likely to turn up?” Vane asked. “It’s ever so long since I’ve seen him.”
“I’m afraid not. In fact, Gerald’s rather under a cloud just now. I may as well tell you this, because you are sure to hear of it sooner or later. He has been extravagant, and, as he assures us, extraordinarily unlucky.”
“Stocks and shares?” suggested Vane, who was acquainted with some of the family tendencies.
Evelyn hesitated a moment. “That would have been more readily forgiven him. I believe he has speculated on the turf as well.”
Vane was surprised, since he understood that Gerald Chisholm was a barrister, and betting on the turf was not an amusement he would have associated with that profession.
“Then,” he said thoughtfully, “I must run up and see him later on.”
Evelyn felt sorry she had spoken. Gerald needed help, which his father was not in a position to offer. She was not censorious of other people’s faults; but it was impossible to be blind to some aspects of her brother’s character, and she would have preferred that Vane should not meet Gerald while the latter was embarrassed by financial difficulties. She changed the subject.
“Several of the things you told me about your life in Canada interested me,” she said. “It must have been bracing to feel that you depended upon your own efforts and stood on your own feet, free from all the hampering customs that are common here.”
“The position has its disadvantages. You have no family influence behind you; nothing to fall back upon. If you can’t make good your footing you must go down. It’s curious that just before I came over here a lady I met in Vancouver expressed an opinion very like yours. She said it must be pleasant to feel that one was, to some extent at least, master of one’s fate.”
“Then she merely explained my meaning more clearly than I have done.”
“One could have imagined that she has everything she could reasonably wish for. If I’m not transgressing, so have you. It’s strange you should both harbour the same idea.”
“I don’t think it’s uncommon among young women nowadays. There’s a grandeur in the thought that one’s fate lies in the hands of the high unseen powers; but to allow one’s life to be moulded by – one’s neighbours’ prejudices and preconceptions is a different matter. Besides, if unrest and human striving were sent, was it only that they should be repressed?”
Vane sat silent a moment or two. He had noticed the brief pause and fancied that she had changed one of the words that followed it. He did not think it was her neighbours’ opinions she most chafed against.
“It’s not a point I’ve been concerned about,” he replied at length. “In a general way, I did what I wanted.”
“Which is a privilege that is denied to us.” Evelyn spoke without bitterness, and added a moment later: “What do women who are left to their own resources do in Western Canada?”
“Some of them marry; I suppose that’s the most natural thing,” said Vane with an air of reflection that amused her. “Anyway,