As she walked by the man’s side, still letting her hand remain in his, Meg kept giving him scrutinizing looks aside, and trying in her way to read him. He was a man just past middle life, he was powerful and well-built, and had keen, and at the same time rather unhappy-looking, blue eyes, with brows and lashes as black as Rob’s and her own. There was something strong in his fine-looking, clean-shaven face, and the hand which held hers had a good, firm grasp, and felt like a hand which had worked in its time.
As for the man himself, he was trying an experiment. He had been suddenly seized with a desire to try it, and see how it would result. He was not sure that it would be a success, but if it proved one it might help to rid him of gloom he would be glad to be relieved of. He felt it rather promising when Meg went at once to the point and asked him a practical question.
“You don’t know our names?” she said.
“You don’t know mine,” he answered. “It’s John Holt. You can call me that.”
“John Holt,” said Meg. “Mr. John Holt.”
The man laughed. Her grave, practical little air pleased him.
“Say John Holt, without the handle to it,” he said. “It sounds well.”
Meg looked at him inquiringly. Though he had laughed, he seemed to mean what he said.
“It’s queer, of course,” she said, “because we don’t know each other well; but I can do it, if you like.”
“I do like,” he said, and he laughed again.