'You look splendid. I shall be proud of you!'
Paul blushed furiously. It was the first compliment ever paid to him by a woman.
'Oh, I feel all right,' he stammered. 'The healthy life in the woods, open air, and constant moving keep a fellow "fixed-up" to concert pitch all the time. I've never once—consulted a doctor in my life.' He was careful to keep the slang out. He felt he managed it admirably. He said 'consulted.'
'And you wrote such nice letters, Paul. It was dear of you.'
'I was lonely,' he said bluntly. And after a pause he added, 'I got all yours.'
'I'm so glad.' And then another pause. In which fashion they talked on for half an hour, each secretly estimating the other—wondering a little why they did not feel all kind of poignant emotions they had rather expected to feel. It was a perfectly natural scene between a brother and sister who had grown up entirely apart, who were quite honest, who were utterly different types, and who yet wished to hold to one another as the nearest blood ties they possessed. They skimmed pleasantly and, so far as he was concerned, more and more easily, over the surface of things. Her talk, like her letters, was sincere, simple, shallow; it concealed no hidden depths, he felt at once. And by degrees, even in this first conversation, crept a shadow of other things, so that he realised they were in reality leagues apart, and could never have anything much in common below the pleasant surface relations of life.
Yet, even while he sheered off, as oil declines from its very nature to mingle with water, he felt genuinely drawn to her in another way. She was his own sister; she was his nearest tie; and she was Dick's widow. They would get along together all right; they would be good friends.
'Twenty years, Margaret.'
'Twenty years, Paul.'
And then another pause of several minutes during which something that was too vague to be a real thought passed like a shadow through his mind. What could his friend Dick have seen in her that was necessary to his life and happiness—Dick Messenger, who was scholar, poet, thinker-who sought the everlasting things—God? He instantly suppressed it as unworthy, something of which he was ashamed, but not before it had left a definite little trace in his imagination.
'So at last, Paul, you've really come home,' she resumed; 'I can hardly believe it,—and are going to settle down. You are a rich man.'
'Aunt Alice did her duty,' he laughed. He ignored the reference to settling down. It vaguely displeased him. 'It's for you as well as me,' he added, meaning the money. 'I want to share with you whatever you need.'
'Not a penny,' she said quickly; 'I have all I need. I live with my memories, you know. I am only so glad for your sake,—after all your hard life out there.'
'The life wasn't hard; it was rather wonderful,' he said simply. 'I liked it.'
'For a time perhaps; but you must have had curious experiences and lived with very rough people in those—lumber camp places you wrote about.'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'Simple kind of men, but very decent, very genuine. Few signs of city polish, I admit, but then you know I never cared for frills, Margaret.'
'Frills!' she exclaimed, without any expression on her face. 'Of course not. Still, I am very glad you have left it all. The life must often have been unsuitable and lonely; one always felt that for you. You can't have had any of the society that one's accustomed to.'
'Not of that kind,' he put in hurriedly with a short laugh, 'but of other kinds. I struck a pretty good crowd of men on the whole.'
She turned her face slightly away from him; her eyes, he divined, had been fixed for a moment on his hands. For the first time in his life he realised that they were large and rough and brown. Her own were so pale and dainty—like china hands, glossy and smooth—and the gold bangle on her thin wrist looked as though every second it must slip over her fingers. His own hands disappeared swiftly into the pockets of his coat.
She turned to him with a gentle smile. 'Anyhow,' she said, 'it is simply too delightful to know that you really are here at last. It must seem strange to you at first, and there are so many things to talk over—such a lot to tell. I want to hear all your plans. You'll get used to us after a bit, and there are lots of nice people in the neighbourhood who are dying to meet you.'
Her brother felt inclined to explain that he had no wish to interfere with their 'dying '; but, instead, he returned her smile. 'I'm a poor hand at meeting people, I'm afraid,' he said. 'I'm not as sociable as I might be.'
'But you'll get over that. Of course, living so long in the backwoods makes one unsociable. But we'll try and make you happy and comfortable. You have no idea how very, very glad I am that you've come home.'
Paul believed her. He leaned over and patted her hand, and she smiled frankly and sweetly in his face. She was a very shadowy sort of personality, he felt. If he blew hard she might blow away altogether, or disappear like a soap-bubble.
'I'm glad too, of course,' he replied. 'Only at my age, you know, it's not easy to tackle new habits.'
'No one could take you for a day more than thirty-five,' she said with truth; 'so that shall be our own little private secret. You look quite absurdly young.'
They laughed together easily and naturally. Paul felt more at home and soothed than he had thought possible. It had not been in the least formidable after all, and for the first time in his life he knew a little of that enervating kind of happiness that comes from being made a fuss of. As there was still a considerable interval before tea, they left their chairs and strolled through the garden, and as they went, the talk turned upon the past, and his sister spoke of Dick and of all he had meant to do in the world, had he lived. Paul heard the details of his sudden death for the first time. Her voice and manner were evidence of the melancholy she still felt, but her brother's heart was deeply stirred; he asked for all the particulars he had so often wondered about, and in her quiet, soothing tone, tinged now with tender sadness, she supplied the information. Clearly she had never arisen from the blow. She had worshipped Dick without understanding him.
'Death always frightens me, I think,' she said with a faint smile. 'I try not to think about it.'
She passed on to speak of the children, and told him how difficult she found it to cope with them—she suffered from frequent headaches and could not endure noise—and how she hoped when they were a little older to be more with them. Mademoiselle Fleury, meanwhile, was such an excellent woman and was teaching them all they should know.
'Though, of course, I keep a close eye on them so far as I am able,' she explained, 'and only wish I were stronger.'
They sauntered through the rose-garden and down the neat gravel paths that led to the wilder parts of the grounds where the rhododendron bushes stood in rounded domes and masses. It was very peaceful, very beautiful. He trod softly and carefully. The hush of centuries of cultivation lay over it all. Even the butterflies flew gently, as to the measure of a leisurely dance that deprecated undue animation. Paul caught his thoughts wandering to the open spaces of untamed moorland he had seen from the hill-top. More and more, as his sister's personality revealed itself, he got the impression that she lived enclosed like the wooden cows he had seen from the train, in a little green field, with precise and neatly trimmed borders. Strong emotions, as all other symptoms of plain and vigorous life, she shrank from. There were notice-boards set about her to warn trespassers, stating clearly that she did not wish to be let out. Yet in her way she was true, loving, and sweet—only it was such a conventional way, he felt.
Leaving the world of rhododendron bushes behind them, they came to the beginning of a pine-wood leading to the heather-land beyond. There was a touch of primitive wildness here. The trees grew straight and tall, filling the glade, and a stream ran brawling among their roots.
'This is the Gwyle,' she said, as they entered the shade, 'it was Dick's favourite part of the whole grounds. I rarely come here; it's dark even in summer, and rather damp and draughty, I always think.'
Paul looked about him and drew a long breath. The