Chapter Fifteen.
A Council of War.
When the strokes of the horse’s hoofs told that he had mounted and was riding away, Clare could not resist turning to glance back at him. How well he looked in the saddle, she thought, and then the calm strength of the almost melancholy face as he talked to her, the easy indifference to what would have irritated and stung most men, came back to her. This was an individuality absolutely new to her experience, and one of vivid interest, so vivid indeed that she began to recognise with a sort of wonder that she could not get it out of her thoughts. She recalled their conversation. If he had laid himself out to say exactly the right thing all through it, he could not have pleased her more, and yet it was obvious that he was talking perfectly naturally, and without premeditation—certainly without an idea of pleasing anybody. But—was she going to make a sort of hero of the man? Well, it certainly began to look something like it. So when at the breakfast-table Fullerton remarked—
“Didn’t I see you talking to Lamont just now, Clare, over by the Sea Deep stands?” she felt that the mere question evolved within her quite an unexpected degree of combativeness.
“Yes, you very probably did,” she answered. “We met during my morning constitutional while you lazy people were snoring. He’s very interesting.”
“Is he?”
The tone, savouring of curt incredulity, whipped up the combative instinct still more, as she answered, with quite unnecessary crispness—
“Certainly. He’s got ideas, anyhow. So there’s that much interesting about him, if only for the scarcity of those who have.”
“Ideas or not, he funked again yesterday. When Jim Steele wanted him to take his coat off,” sneered Fullerton. Then the accumulated combativeness broke its barriers and fairly overwhelmed the incautious sneerer.