Whether it was Kenneth’s skillful management or a preconceived arrangement on Mrs. Lennox’s part or just Fate, deponent saith not, but the fact remains that when the coach started off again that evening, Hester found herself ensconced on the back seat with Landor, the rest of the party chatting gayly in front of them, the guards well in the rear.
“Miss Dale,” Landor said when they had ridden some moments in silence, “are you too tired to-night to let me talk to you a little, seriously?” He had no desire to lose any time.
“Then you think I can be serious?”
“I know you can, only you never choose to be with me.”
“I am an awful tease,” she admitted, touched by his wistful tone, “but I can be the most serious person in the world and I should like to have you to talk to me, only—you are not going to scold me any more, are you, Mr. Landor? I think I am really too tired for that.” Her low musical voice seemed to drift to him plaintively through the darkness.
“I was going to be selfishly egotistical and talk about—about a friend of mine,” hoping she had not detected how near he had come to blundering. “I wanted to ask your advice about him if you are quite sure you are not too tired to listen, Miss Dale.”
“Of course I am not. I should like to hear about your friend, Mr. Landor.”
Was there ever a voice so sweet, he thought, or a girl so full of contradictions? One moment bewitchingly, aggravatingly whimsical, the next revealing unfathomable depths of a nature which to him seemed the purest and noblest in the world. Aloud he said:
“My friend is torn by a divided duty. He wants to go to the war but—”
“You think there will be war? Can’t he go?” she interrupted. “It seems to me every man must go who can.”