They would stray together through the wonders of the town, Mac and she, and pause and gaze in at shops like two children, buy sweets and eat them unashamed and openly. Stop to look at performing monkeys, or listen to street ballad-singers, or criticize passing funerals.
He had never seen so much of life round town as Campanula showed him, clapping beside him in her little clogs when the streets were damp, or gliding beside him sandal-shod in the warm, dry days of spring.
Where Campanula was concerned, this dour and dusty Scot had all the delicate and instinctive feelings of a woman; he had noticed “fine” the change that had come over her of late, and the change in her manner towards Leslie.
The thing pleased him, yet it made him sigh—and frown, when he called to mind “that wumman,” the mental label he had attached to Jane du Telle.
When he had finished business he went to Danjuro’s shop, where he had an appointment, as we have seen, with an Englishman. The Englishman having been duly plundered, Mac looked at his watch, found it was nearly twelve, and was struck by a bright idea.
He would go to the House of the Clouds, fetch Campanula out, and have luncheon with her.
Ten minutes later found him on the veranda.
Campanula had just returned, having left O Toku San.
M’Gourley sat down on the veranda, and Campanula sat down beside him on a little fur rug made from the skin of an Ounce, or some such small animal. She looked sad and depressed, and her eyes wandered about the landscape garden as if questioning its hills, its streams, its old, old forests.
“Campanula,” said Mac, taking her little hand between his great rough, red paws, “what ails you, child? You look sad and fashed, what’s been worrying you?”