He opened the gate. But it was not he who came in. He was opening it for some one else—a woman, a girl, something tall and feminine, anyhow. It was wrapped in a cloak. It had a flat pancake on its head for a hat. What could it be, and mean? The idea darted into Aline's mind that there had been an accident on the way here from the station; that perhaps Somerled had nearly or quite run over this creature—or her dog—or something.
"Hello, Mrs. West!" he answered her cheerfully. "I've got to you at last, and I've brought a visitor for the night. I've given my guarantee that you'll make her welcome."
The light of Aline's joy went out like a ray of moonlight swallowed up by a marauding cloud. She did not in the least understand what had happened, or what were the obligations to which he had committed her; but in any case the lute she had tuned had a rift in it, a big, bad rift, and it could make no music to-night. She felt suddenly at her worst instead of her best, as if she had tumbled off a bank of flowers in her prettiest frock into a bog. She longed to be cold and snappy and disagreeable, as a wife may safely be to a husband when he has blundered, and as she had often been to Jim in his brief day; but Somerled was not her husband, and certainly never would be unless she minded her "p's and q's" like a good and very clever little angel with unmeltable butter in its smiling mouth. So she shrieked, "Hang it!" and even worse, with her whole heart, and said with her lips, in a charming voice, "Why, of course! I shall be delighted to welcome any friend of yours, and so will Basil. I love surprises."
It was a short arbour, and as they all three came out of it, Mrs. West and Somerled and the wrapped-up thing with the pancake hat—the chauffeur following with a suit-case—Aline's eyes made the most of the starlight, that she might read the mystery and know the worst. The worst was very bad. Under the stars the girl looked a radiant beauty, and so young, so young! How was the man going to account for her? Was there still hope?
"I told you what Mrs. West would say!" exclaimed Somerled. "This is Miss MacDonald, a daughter of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald."
"Oh!" said Aline. "How interesting! I'm delighted to meet her." She held out her hand, and the girl, who had not yet spoken a word, put hers into it.
There was no real reason why "I'm delighted to meet her" wasn't precisely the nicest thing to say in the circumstances, but somehow as a greeting it hadn't quite the right ring, Aline herself felt. And she was sorry, because she wanted to be entirely satisfactory to Somerled in every way, in all situations, no matter how trying, and thus perhaps save the ship. Why not? Many men of thirty-four were bored with girls, and Somerled must have been bored by them already in their thousands. Still, something that lay deep down within herself was sad and anxious. A daughter of the beautiful and almost notorious Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald! If he weren't in love with the girl, perhaps he had had a desperate love affair with the mother.
"I'd no idea that Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald had any children," Aline went on, as she shook a supple, satiny hand which wore no glove.
"She's only got me," said the girl, "and she doesn't know she's got me yet. At least, she may have forgotten."
Somerled broke out laughing. "You'll puzzle Mrs. West," he said, with a good-natured, amused, and proprietary air which stabbed Aline's feelings as with little sharp pins. No, whatever else he might be, he was not bored. "We'll have to do a lot of explaining by and by, indoors."