When we rose from the table we all with one consent strolled into the garden. It was not yet dusk, but the days were already shortening and there was not sufficient light to make it worth while to begin a game. Mr. Dicks, with his head thrust back and his hands in the pockets of his coat, stalked off gloomily alone towards the apple trees. Miss Cottrell, evidently surprised that she had received no invitation to join him, stood hesitating on the edge of the lawn. After glancing with a timid air, first to the right and then to the left, to see if any one were observing her, she presently strolled after him.
"I am going for a walk," said Paulina, opening the side gate which led into the meadow across which lay the field path to Greentree Park. "Come, Nan. Oh, do you want to come too, Professor Faulkner?"
"If I may be permitted!" he said.
"Oh, well, we'll try to put up with you," was her rejoinder.
And we walked slowly along the narrow path beside the hedge. The grass was long and damp and the path was barely wide enough for two, so Mr. Faulkner had to walk behind us. But we only proceeded thus to the end of the field, for there Paulina suddenly remembered that she had forgotten something that she must say to Mrs. Lucas without more delay.
"It won't take me long to run back," she said; "if you two walk on slowly, I dare say I shall overtake you by and by."
I proposed that we should turn back too; but it appeared that Mr. Faulkner wanted to take a look into the park. He had not seen it since the garden party was in contemplation, he said; and the reference brought the blood into my cheeks.
So we strolled on along the quiet path, and he began telling me about his future prospects. He had been summoned to Edinburgh to fill the place of a friend, a college professor who was laid aside by illness. He had remained there till the term ended. Meanwhile the former professor had resigned his chair, finding that his health would not permit him to continue to perform its duties, and Alan Faulkner had learned on good authority that the post would probably be offered to himself.
"Will you take it?" I asked.
"I think so—indeed, I should be thankful to accept it," he said. "The work is just what I love. It would be a grand opportunity for me. And in Edinburgh, too! Ah, Miss Nan, you do not know what the very name of Edinburgh means to a Scotsman."