"Yes. But I think he may leave the Army for good. My father's health is so very frail. Nothing can be settled, however, till my brother comes home," she answered, hating herself for the prevarication that her clear conscience told her was nothing short of a lie.
But the pride in her burned high, and she would not demean herself to this man who, with all his pleasant ways and curious suggestion of power and strength, was only a rich, new-made American, who could never be expected to understand any of the feelings that lay deep in the heart of a Mackinnon of Achree.
As for Rosmead, he only smiled inwardly, attracted by her moods, which were as changeful as the face of Loch Earn. He was a builder of bridges, and the conquering of obstacles was, as he had told her, his business.
He could bide his time.
CHAPTER VI
THE HOPE OF ACHREE
When the "Jumna," an old troopship which had been fitted out for second-rate traffic from India, slowly approached her mooring in Plymouth Dock, Malcolm Mackinnon, smoking at the rail, ran his eyes along the waiting queue of expectant people at the landing-stage without the remotest expectation of seeing anybody belonging to him there. He knew the limitations of life in Glenogle, and how very little journeying to and fro on the face of the earth fell to the inmates of Achree.
He did not resemble the Mackinnons in appearance. He was short and thick-set, with his head set squarely on his shoulders, and he had a ruddy, sun-burned face, a pair of light blue eyes, a shifty mouth, and hair with more than a touch of red in it. He was very like his mother who had wrought confusion in Achree.
Isla, of course, did not know the full tragedy of her father's sad married life. Only she did know that she had been often impressed with the feeling and conviction that Malcolm was alien to Achree.
He might have been a changeling, so much did he differ in everything from any Mackinnon among them. Yet he had looks of a kind and a certain way with him which won people and made them, even against their better judgment, forgive him. This is a dangerous possession for a man who is not endowed with a very high sense of responsibility. It may at once be said that on more than one occasion Malcolm Mackinnon had traded on this happy-go-lucky, winning way of his.