Adam Johnstone's Son

by F. Marion Crawford

“Well—you are awfully good company, you know, and I can’t always be sitting with my mother on the terrace, though we love each other dearly. ”

“You are the most extraordinary person!” exclaimed Johnstone, in genuine bewilderment. “And of course your mother dislikes me too, doesn’t she?”

“Not at all,” answered Clare. “You asked me that before, and I told you the truth. Since then, she likes you better and better. She is always saying how nice you are.”

“Then I had better always talk to her,” suggested Brook, feeling for a clue.

“Oh, I shouldn’t like that at all!” cried the young girl, laughing.

“And yet you don’t like me. This is like twenty questions. You must have some very particular reason for it,” he added thoughtfully. “I suppose I must have done some awful thing without knowing it. I wish you would tell me. Won’t you, please? Then I’ll go away.”

“No,” Clare answered. “I won’t tell you. But I have a reason. I’m not capricious. I don’t take violent dislikes to people for nothing. Let it alone. We can talk very pleasantly about other things. Since you are good enough to like me, it might be amusing to tell me why. If you have any good reason, you know, you won’t stop liking me just because I don’t like you, will you?”

She glanced sideways at him as she spoke, and he was watching her and trying to understand her, for the revelation of her dislike had come upon him very suddenly. She was on the right as they walked, and he saw her against the light sky, above the line of the low parapet. Perhaps the light behind her dazzled him; at all events, he had a strange impression for a moment. She seemed to have the better of him, and to be stronger and more determined than he. She seemed taller than she was, too, for she was on the higher part of the road, in the middle of it. For an instant he felt precisely what she so often felt with him, that she had power over him. But he did not resent the sensation as she did, though it was quite as new to him.

Nevertheless, he did not answer her, for she had spoken only half in earnest, and he himself was not just then inclined to joke for the mere sake of joking. He looked down at the road under his feet, and he knew all at once that Clare attracted him much more than he had imagined. The sidelong glance she had bestowed upon him had fascination in it. There was an odd charm about her girlish contrariety and in her frank avowal that she did not like him. Her dislike roused him. He did not choose to be disliked by her, especially for some absurd trifle in his behaviour, which he had not even noticed when he had made the mistake, whatever it might be.

He walked along in silence, and he was aware of her light tread and the soft sound of her serge skirt as she moved. He wished her to like him, and wished that he knew what to do to change her mind. But that would not be easy, since he did not know the cause of her dislike. Presently she spoke again, and more gravely.