“You’ll be glad the tree is gone, surely?” he added. “It ought to be a relief to feel that you have a decent chance of dying quietly of Anno Domini like the rest of us.”
Christian shrugged his shoulders.
“I feel—lonely!” he confessed rather shame-facedly. “It’s absurd to let a tree make any difference, and most people would think I was talking off the top. But there’s a hole in my life like the hole in the lawn. I can’t explain. It’s there, that’s all. You’ll have to prop me pretty hard, Callander, old man!”
“I’ll send for another bottle of that tonic,” the other answered in his matter-of-fact way. “You’ll take hold all right when once you’re thoroughly strong. As for being lonely—that’s easily mended. Every man crosses a desert sometime in his life, and you’ve passed yours. You’ll be marrying before long, of course.”
Christian flushed violently with the transparent colour of the convalescent.
“That’s hardly likely. Crump has a way of destroying the balance of things. It either dwarfs or ennobles me. I want a woman to see me as I am—not through a series of magic mirrors.”
“You’ve got Crump on the brain—you Lyndesays!” Callander grunted impatiently. “Why on earth shouldn’t a girl be glad to marry you for your own sake, I’d like to know? I’m not in the habit of throwing flowers at people, but you must have a pretty good idea what I think of you, by now. Try some decent girl, and see if she doesn’t think the same.”
“I did try,” Christian replied quietly, “and the answer was as I told you. Crump!”
Callander stared at him for a moment in silence.
“Queer!” he muttered to himself at last, turning away. He had not guessed that things had gone as far as that, nor could he understand why Christian should be so blind. Deb’s secret was plain enough to him. She must have deliberately placed Crump as a barrier between herself and the man she loved. But again why? Or did the matter lie at the door of the inscrutable Lyndesay whom the Tree had taken? He stayed by the window, puzzling, as Christian turned restlessly back into the room.