"Hard enough to ensure your peace of mind, I hope," she replied quietly.
Violet Vane's bright eyes were on them both, and she gave an odd little laugh. "I wonder if it is! I should like to vivisect you and find out, Captain Macleod; only the process of seeing the 'wheels go wound,' as Toddie says in 'Helen's Babies,' might end in stopping them altogether. Perhaps it would be as well--for other people's hearts."
"The heart is no easily damaged, anyway," put in Mrs. Cameron, with the air of one who knows. "Folks like to think it is, but it is maistly the stomach that goes wrang. I've seen a heap o' broken hearts in my time cured wi' camomile tea; it's just grand for the digestion."
"I shall order Peter Macpherson to lay down a large bed at once," began Paul, gravely.
"For the sake of your victims, I suppose," interrupted Mrs. Vane. "Commend me to Captain Macleod, Mrs. Cameron, for shameless conceit."
"Pardon me," put in Paul, "for my own." He gave a glance at Marjory, who was standing apart with a little fine smile of contempt on her face, but she took no notice of him. To tell truth she scarcely knew why she felt scornful, and, when they had gone, she sate down in defiance of her promise to her books again, telling herself that Paul by himself, willing to fall in with her life, was quite a different being from Paul expecting her to be friends with his friends--people whose dresses fitted them like a glove, and who looked charming. Yes, that was the right word!--charming from the sole of their feet to the crown of their heads. As if she had anything in common with such people!--or, for the matter of that, with Paul, himself--she, whose fate it was to work, and who liked that fate? Yet almost before Captain Macleod and his companion had reached home after the détour he begged for round the garden, Marjory had thrown down her book in a temper at her own stupidity, run upstairs for her hat, and was off for a wild, solitary scramble over the hills.
Paul and his companion, meanwhile, strolling idly through the vineries and hothouses, she with dainty dress, draped gingerly from fear of stain, and vivid, whimsical face, diving like a honey-sucker at the perfumed flowers, were enjoying themselves thoroughly in their own way; so that the former, coming out at last from an atmosphere of stephanotis and tropical heat to face the bright, sharp air of a Highland glen, gave a little shiver, and told himself inconsequently that Violet was the most charming companion in the world. And so she was, being blessed with the infallible range-finder called tact; for half the misunderstandings of life come from people either blazing away at a bird that is out of shot, or blowing one to pieces,--that is to say, from a failure to appreciate distance and the fact that, though our best friend may be, so to speak, well within range over night, that is no reason why we should reach him with the same sight the next morning. In most of us feeling, tastes, dislikes, fluctuate with every hour; nay, more, the individual, as a whole, hovers like the needle of a barometer on either side of change, so that the more sensitive of us are conscious of the difference in ourselves at different times in the day, and it becomes possible for us to be certain that we might do that at ten o'clock at night which we could not do at ten o'clock in the day. Yet, despite this undoubted fact, most of us resent the change of position in regard to our outlook in life which it entails, the change of key which strict harmony requires. Mrs. Vane, however, was not one of the many, and, as a rule, when she played a dissonant note she did it out of malice aforethought; as she did now when, looking back at the garden with its low espaliers and broad walks bordered by old-fashioned flowers, she paused to say sweetly, "It is a charming place, Paul; you ought to be very happy here with her."
He frowned as he held the door open for his companion to pass through; but he was beginning to remember that she used the bayonet deftly, and came to close quarters at once.
"The personal pronoun, third person singular, feminine gender, accusative case, is rather too vague to interest me, I'm afraid. Can't you suggest something more concrete?"
She laughed as she pointed gaily to an upper path which, after a time, would merge into theirs. "See! yonder are the young ladies, going home, as we should be also, since you will be wanted. Don't let me keep you, please. They will walk faster than I do, and I am used to being left behind to fend for myself."