CHAPTER II
"It's quite remarkable how well I'm keeping—quite astonishing," said Mr. Walkingshaw to himself, as he continued his walk with his recovered hat perched at the angle that had so surprised his acquaintances.
A month had passed since the stormy afternoon when he had said farewell to his family, and he now looked back upon that adieu as the rashest and most premature act of his life. Andrew must have frightened him; that was the only conceivable excuse for his conduct, seen in the white light of his present rude health; and he secretly decided that the junior partner had been getting a little too much rope. If you once let these lads kick up their heels, the deuce was in it. He would do nothing unjust, but he would see that he didn't encourage Andrew to alarm him again. Thus does the virtue even of the most exemplary occasionally over-exert itself.
Meanwhile, it was uncommonly pleasant to be able to chase one's hat for a quarter of a mile and feel not a twinge of gout or rheumatism after the merry pursuit. Mr. Walkingshaw felt half inclined to give his hat a start again. What a joke it would be to kick it over the railings next time! At this very undignified thought, he recollected himself and for a few minutes looked as decorously pompous as the head of the firm should. But somehow or other that run seemed to have stirred his blood. The fun of kicking his hat over the railings returned so forcibly that there spread over his ruddy face a smile which greatly surprised the wife of one of his most respected clients passing at that moment in her carriage. She too returned home to talk of Mr. Walkingshaw's curious demeanor in the public streets of his native city.
The kicking fancy, by a natural chain of thought, reminded him that the England and Scotland International was being played next Saturday. He must be there, of course; and wouldn't he shout himself hoarse for Scotland! He had a moment's dismay when he remembered that old Berstoun had made an appointment to come in on Saturday and see him about his confounded money affairs. Then he cheered up again. Let the old chap be hanged! He would wire and put him off. In fact, he must be put off. For had not Madge Dunbar promised to come to the match with him? By this time he had reached the door of his house, and it occurred to him forcibly that afternoon tea was always a much pleasanter function if Madge were present. He hoped she wouldn't be out calling.
The dignified twilight of his hall sobered him considerably. He had been following a strangely frivolous line of thought, he told himself. Certainly he must never allow his hat to escape again. That run had quite upset his equanimity: he found himself going upstairs two steps at a time, and had to pause and shorten his stride.
In the drawing-room he found his sister and the widow.
"Hullo!" said the W.S. before he could recollect himself.
"Hullo!" smiled the widow archly.
He had felt ashamed of the exclamation the moment it escaped him, but finding it received so prettily, he secretly resolved to say it again some day—after a week or two had elapsed, perhaps; confining himself to more dignified remarks in the interval.
"You look as though you had heard good news," said Mrs. Dunbar.
"I've been chasing my hat," he chuckled.
He had meant to make no allusion to the undignified episode, and here he was blurting it out first thing! He began to feel puzzled by this odd persistence of high spirits.
"Not in the street, surely?" said Miss Walkingshaw, with her longest face.
"Oh, I hope it was in the street!" cried the widow. "I'd have loved to see you!"
Her dear friend regarded this speech with the strongest disapproval; in fact, she had never quite approved of Madge since those unlucky words of hers. But Mrs. Dunbar had ceased for some reason to show the same marked regard for her opinion. It was Heriot who had again refused to hear of her leaving, and she seemed content to win his approval.
"It was in the street," smiled Mr. Walkingshaw. "I chased it for quite half a mile, and ran it down single-handed. I wish you had been there, Madge. You'd have seen there was life in the old dog still!"
He had doubled the distance and forgotten the lady with the umbrella; but then, as Andrew had remarked, a distaste for dry detail had suddenly become characteristic of his recovered health.
"Too much life sometimes, I think!" she exclaimed coquettishly; and Mr. Walkingshaw winked in reply.
He was inwardly as surprised at the wink as he had been at the "hullo." These aberrations seemed to come quite spontaneously. He wished he could understand what caused them.
"Have you had a tiring day at the office?" asked the dry Scotch voice of his sister.
Her familiar accents instinctively banished the aberrations.
"Tolerably, tolerably," he said, with his old air. "We had the affairs of Guthrie and Co. to settle up. I settled them, though."
"Andrew would be a great help," she replied, with an apprehensive glance at him. She was much in her nephew's confidence at present.
"Andrew, pooh!" said his father. "He'd talk the hind leg off an elephant. When things need settling, I just settle them myself and leave him to grumble away to Thomieson."
Miss Walkingshaw gasped, and the widow gave the sweetest little laugh.
"Poor Andrew!" said she.
"Poor Andrew indeed," retorted her friend, with more indignation than she had almost ever permitted herself in the presence of her formidable brother.
He looked at her in genuine surprise. So subtly had his point of view altered that he quite failed to grasp her cause of complaint.
"What's the matter, Mary?" he asked.
"Oh, if you don't see, what's the good in my trying to explain?"
He merely stared at her, and the widow tactfully interposed.
"Of course you are going to the match on Saturday?" said she.
"Of course, Madge."
"Have you forgotten Mr. Berstoun is coming to see you?" asked Miss Walkingshaw.
He waved aside this objection with a dignified sweep of his hand. A piece of cake happened to be in it, and the icing flew across the floor. On the instant he was on his hands and knees collecting it.
"Berstoun's a mere nuisance," he answered from the carpet. "He'll never get out of debt if he lives to a thousand. What's the good in his coming to see me? Let him tell his creditors to go to the devil; that's the only sensible thing to do."
He rose chuckling—
"He'll go himself some day; so they'll meet again."
His sister's face was too much for the widow's gravity. She began to laugh hysterically, her black eyes dancing all the time in the merriest fashion at her host. It was so infectious that in a moment he had joined her.
"Won't they?" he kept asking through his chuckles. "Won't they, Madge?"
She kept nodding, choked with laughter, and another strange sensation began to puzzle Mr. Walkingshaw. It was not so much something new as something forgotten which was beginning to return, and it concerned this very sympathetic widow. She was an uncommonly nice woman—really uncommonly: and what an odd pleasure he began to feel in her society! He felt even more satisfaction than when he had run down his hat.