“What rot!” growled Southerley, with a restless turn in his chair.
Bayre looked at him out of the corners of his eyes.
“I hope that’s not true,” said he, “for I happen to know that she’s engaged.”
Southerley started to his feet.
“How do you know?” he asked angrily. “How should you know more than we do about it? unless—”
Repton took up his speech when he dropped it.
“By Jove!” cried he, “unless you’re engaged to her yourself?”
Although Bayre excused himself with vehemence, showed them the absurdity of the suggestion seeing that he had met the lady less often than they had, yet he did not feel sure that he succeeded in convincing them. And there remained a certain shadow over the intercourse of the three during the next few days. One reason for this was his extreme reticence about his visit to the islands. He did not say enough about anything or anybody to satisfy their minds. He was not engaged to Miss Eden, so he said; he was not reconciled to his uncle. On the whole, Repton and Southerley were of opinion that he was either a liar or that he had wasted his time. So that he had more time to himself than usual during the next few days, and he made use of it to devour at his leisure the manuscript novel Olwen had entrusted to his care.
As he read sympathetically, of course, two things became manifest to him. The one was that the olive-skinned hero with the brown eyes and the wavy black hair had been inspired by the girl’s conception of himself; and the other was that, amid all the traces of girlish inexperience and inexpertness with which the tale abounded, there was yet a saving grace, a charm of vivacity and of freshness which, as he was old enough to know, are the commonest marks of real ability in a beginner.
The first discovery touched him the most. But the second had a pathetic interest also; for he recognised the fact that, with all her disadvantages as compared with himself in the way of actual experience of life, there was something in the girl’s manuscript which his own more solid productions lacked, a something which made it not improbable that he would be more successful in disposing of her work than he was in disposing of his own.