"Then take me to Mrs. West," the girl said, as she might have said, "Take me to the scaffold."
Somerled laughed with amusement and triumph. He was astonishingly interested in his adventure, astonishingly pleased at the prospect of continuing it. Surely this girl was unique! He believed in comparatively few things, but he believed in her: for not to do so would have been indeed ungrateful, as she was ready to prove her implicit belief in him.
"A daughter of Mrs. Bal!" he said to himself as he led Mrs. Bal's daughter to his motor-car.
Poor Barrie would have believed in almost any man who owned a motor.
IV
Aline West and her brother, Basil Norman, were walking slowly up and down the garden path in front of the old-fashioned manor farmhouse lent to them for ten days by an admiring friend. They were waiting for Somerled, who had expressed a desire not to be met at the station; and listening for the teuf-teuf of motors along the distant road prevented Mrs. West from attending to her brother's suggestions. He had had an inspiration for the new novel they were planning together, and was explaining it eagerly, for Basil was a born story-teller. Only, he had never found time for story-telling until lately. He was tremendously happy in his new way of life, although only a terrible illness which had closed others paths of success had opened this door for him. It did not matter in the least that Aline got the credit. Not only was he glad that she should have praise, but he was convinced that it ought to be hers. If she had not thought of asking him to try his hand at helping her four years ago, when the incentive to live seemed gone, he might have been driven to put himself out of the way. It was to her, therefore, that he owed everything; and though success as an author had never come to Aline until after the first book they wrote together, that, to Basil Norman's mind, was no more than a coincidence, and he had never ceased to feel that she was generous in letting his name appear with hers on their title pages.
"I wonder if anything can have happened to him!" Aline murmured.
"Which, Dick or Claud?" her brother asked, puzzled. Dick was to be their hero, Claud the villain. Basil had been engaged in outlining the two characters for his sister's approval.
"No. Ian Somerled," she explained almost crossly, though her voice was sweet, because it was never otherwise than sweet. "Either the train's late or——"