“It’s getting late,” he said, with an attentive eye on the clock, the big hand of which seemed to drag with such exasperating slowness. He felt grateful for the first time in their acquaintance to Mrs Aplin for silencing her daughter’s protests against his leaving so soon.
“Whatever did you say to him to make him so huffy?” Rosie asked when he had gone. “I always knew he had a horrid temper.”
“I warned him against that Upton girl. Those people are shameless in their pursuit of him. But he wouldn’t hear a word. If he spends all his spare time with the girls in the cafés, I don’t think it advisable to ask him out here any more.”
“It will be a triumph for her if she succeeds in marrying him,” May opined.
“Oh! he won’t marry her. Men don’t marry those sort of girls.”
As an outcome of that unfortunate talk Matheson went the following afternoon in search of Brenda. It was a cold dark day. A south-east gale was blowing, and the town was enveloped in a sticky dust that clung to the clothes and hair. Grit and small pebbles were carried by the force of the wind and stung the unprotected faces of the few pedestrians who ventured abroad in the teeth of the gale. The clouds hung dense and low upon the mountain, pouring over the rocky sides with the effect of cascades of foam tumbling over a precipice. Matheson, with his head down, buffetted against the gale, and arrived damp and rather breathless at his destination. He was early. He had timed his arrival in the hope of getting Brenda to himself. He asked for Brenda on being admitted. She came to him almost immediately, and it was manifest from her manner that his visit was unexpected.
She shook hands, looked out at the lowering sky and the waving branches of the trees, and smiled.
“You are brave to venture out in this,” she said.
“I’ve been lonely for a week,” he replied, as though that explained everything, as perhaps it did; “an earthquake couldn’t have kept me away to-day.”
The wind rattled the window, and flung a shower of tiny stones against the glass.