"No, you didn't know, of course, for he couldn't tell you," Aline agreed. "But now you do know. Oh, the only way, if Ian is to be made happy again in spite of himself, is for you to marry Basil. Think how happy you will make him too! And Barbara. Every one will be happy, and all through you."
"I'll see Basil and talk to him," said Barrie.
"You will? You little angel! But I must see him first and prepare him. Are you going to do what we all want? Even Ian wants it at heart, though he doesn't know it yet, for it would be such a relief for him to feel you were all right, and he—could go back to—old times."
"I'd marry Basil to-morrow, if I could," Barrie replied.
"Perhaps you can," Aline said, radiant, drying her tears.
Basil persuaded himself that he would have been less than man if he refused to accept his happiness, even though he could have wished it to come to him spontaneously. But nothing, as Aline anxiously reminded him, can be ideal in this world. And it wasn't as if it were certain that Somerled would have married the girl if they had been let alone.
"We shall never know now what he would have done," she said, "and I for one don't want to know. I want to know only what he will do. Even if he has been a little—infatuated, why, you told me yourself that hearts are often caught in the rebound. I shall try so hard."
"But you are going away with us!" Basil said quickly. "You must."
"Oh, I will. I wouldn't trust you alone—to keep Barrie. But afterward I shall write him a letter. Such a letter! Of course, we've all three quite decided now" (it was she, and Basil reluctantly, who had decided) "merely to tell him that we're obliged to take Barrie back to her mother; that Mrs. Bal would hear of nothing else. And it won't be a lie, because as soon as you're married, you will take her to see Barbara. Morgan Bennett will be gone, so Mrs. Bal won't mind—much. Have you decided where the wedding is to be?"