‘She’ll come here for her summer holidays soon,’ his sister resumed, going back to Joan. ‘She works very hard at that “Home” place in town, and Dick always liked her to use us here as if the place were her own. I promised that.’ She dropped gracefully into the wicker chair, and Paul sat down for a moment beside her on the grass. ‘He spent a lot of capital, you know, in the thing and made her superintendent or something. She has a sort of passion for this rescuing of slum children, and, I believe, works herself to death over it, though she has means of her own. So you will be nice to her when she comes, won’t you, and look after her a bit? I do what I can, but I always feel I’m rather a failure. I never know what to talk to her about. She’s so dreadfully in earnest about everything.’
Paul promised. Joan sounded rather attractive, to tell the truth. He remembered something, too, of the big organisation his old friend had founded in London for the rescue and education of waif-boys. A thrill of pride ran through him, and close at its heels a secret sense of shame, that he himself did nothing in the great world of action—that his own life was a mass of selfish dreaming and refined self-seeking, that all his yearning for God and beauty was after all, perhaps, but a spiritual egoism. It was not the first time this thought had come to trouble and perplex. Of late—especially since he had begun to find these safety-valves of self-expression, and so a measure of relief—his mind had turned in the direction of some bigger field to work in outside self, perhaps more than he quite knew or realised.
‘Paul,’ his sister interrupted his reflections, after a prolonged fidgeting to make herself comfortable so that the parasol should shade her, the hat not tickle her, and the novel open easily for reading; ‘you are happy here, aren’t you? You’re not too dull with us, I mean?’
‘It’s quite delightful, Margaret,’ he answered at once. ‘In one sense I have never been so happy in my life.’ He looked straight at her, the sun catching his brown beard and face. ‘And I love the children; they’re just the kind of companions I need.’
‘I’m so glad, so glad,’ she said genuinely. ‘And it’s very kind and good-natured of you to be with them such a lot. You really almost fill Dick’s place for them.’ She sighed and half closed her eyes. ‘Some day you may have children of your own; only you would spoil them quite atrociously, I’m sure.’
‘Am I spoiling yours?’ he asked solemnly.
‘Dreadfully,’ she laughed; ‘and turning little Mademoiselle’s head into the bargain.’
It was his turn to burst out laughing. ‘I think that young lady can take care of herself without difficulty,’ he exclaimed; ‘and as for my spoiling the children, I think it’s they who are spoiling me!’
And, presently, with some easy excuse, he left her side and went off into the woods. Margaret watched him charge across the lawn. A perplexed expression came into her face as she picked up her novel and settled down into the cushions, balancing the red parasol over her head at a very careful angle. Admiration was in her glance, too, as she saw him go. Evidently she was proud of her brother—proud that he was so different from other people, yet puzzled to the verge of annoyance that he should be so.
‘What a strange creature he is,’ was her somewhat indefinite reflection; ‘I thought but one Dick could exist in the world! He’s still a boy—not a day over twenty-five. I wonder if he’s ever been in love, or ever will be? I think—I hope he won’t; he’s rather nice as he is after all.’