The car whirred back through Crump to the pink-washed house, where the passenger actually allowed himself to be discharged without demur. His mother, murmuring embarrassed thanks, was at a loss to understand why Mr. Lionel should regard her erring son so tenderly. “You’ll be the death of me!” she remarked despairingly, as the car slid away. And for the first time that afternoon, Augustus smiled.
CHAPTER XXIII
“The land is positively hilarious!” Christian remarked, from the library window, looking out on the April afternoon. “I’ve never seen Crump smile before, but to-day the dear old thing is frivolling like a child!”
Callander left his books at the table and came to his side.
“It’s like the rest of us—throwing up its hat because you’re about again. Thank Heaven you’re on your feet at last!”
“I’ve been a horrid nuisance, I’m afraid,” Christian said remorsefully, “but I’m not going to bother you any more. Even my head doesn’t dither when I walk. You’ve all been frightfully good to me.”
“It’s just possible that we liked it,” Callander answered drily. “And you certainly did your best to escape our attentions.”
“Yes, I suppose I had a narrow squeak. I wish my grandfather’s taste in pillars had been less elaborate. The last thing I remember seeing was the clock-face. I’ve been haunted by clocks all the time I was bad—great, staring, white-moon-things, always striking eleven! You’ll think I’m a morbid ass——” he turned his shoulder rather nervously—“but I can’t help feeling that if she—my mother—hadn’t been under the Tree at that hour, I should have been the one to go. It meant to have one of us. I suppose, after a manner of speaking, she saved my life.”
“More than time she did something for you!” Callander growled, and apologised in the same breath, since she was dead and defenceless.
That Lyndesay mask, at least, he had never seen lifted.