Meanwhile, she gave herself to irresolute thought. Jim had some advantages and some drawbacks; Evelyn saw the drawbacks plainly. He attracted her; it would be exciting to let him carry her away and embark with him on a romantic adventure. She knew he had recently used a stern control, but he was hot-blooded and his reserve might be undermined. Yet there was a risk; she must give up much. She was drawn in different ways by romance and worldly caution and it looked as if caution would win.
Soon after she reached Langrigg Mordaunt arrived with Dick. The latter declared that Jim was a very good sort, and Evelyn knew his feeling was sincere, but she imagined Dick liked Carrie and was sometimes disturbed. For all that, she had been relieved to note that Carrie liked Dick.
Dinner was a cheerful function, but when they went back to the hall Evelyn was quiet. Joseph Dearham and others had made some renovations in the hall, but they harmonized with the crooked roof-beams and dark oak. There were one or two tall lamps and another that hung by iron chains, but Jim generally used candles in old silver stands. Evelyn wondered how Jim knew that candles were right. It was strange that he often, unconsciously, she thought, struck the proper note.
She studied him and Jake while she talked to Mrs. Winter. Jim seldom wore conventional evening clothes, but he had put on an American dinner-jacket. He and his comrade were strangely agile; their movements were quick, their step was light, like a cat's, and she noted how they lifted their feet. She did not know the prospector gets the habit by walking through tangled bush and across rough stones. They had a suppleness that came from using the long ax, and toil in the wilds had given them a fine-drawn look. In some ways both were modern, but in some they belonged to the past, when the fortress peels were built and the marsh-men fought the Scots.
Jim crossed the floor, and when he began to talk to Carrie, Evelyn felt a jealous pang. The girl had been in the woods with Jim; she had beauty and a curious primitive strength. Jim leaned forward, smiling as he talked to her; they talked confidentially, like tried comrades. Evelyn was moved to something near anger and went to the old grand piano Jim had brought from the drawing-room when he found that Carrie could play ragtime airs. Evelyn had a talent for music and meant to make an experiment. If Jim was what she thought, he would respond.
"If somebody will light the candles, I will sing," she said.
The candles had pale-yellow shades and when Jim struck a match the colored light touched her face and dress. Except for this, the corner was somewhat dark. Amber was Evelyn's color. She struck a few chords that seemed to echo in the distance and then, glancing at Jim, began a prelude with a measured beat. His face was intent; he seemed to search for something in the music that sounded as if it were getting nearer. She wondered whether he heard the call of trumpets and horses' feet drumming in the dark. Somehow she thought he did.
Perhaps she was debasing her talent; this kind of thing was rather a theatrical trick than music. For all that, it needed feeling, and she knew the old Border ballads and their almost forgotten airs. Jim was very still when she began to sing, for her voice and the music moved him strongly. The air was wild, the rude words rang with something one felt when one battled with floods and snowslides. They told how the moss-troopers rode down Ettrick water long ago; but human nature did not change and hard-bitten men now went out on the snowy trail, carrying shovels and axes instead of spears. But how did Evelyn, surrounded by luxurious refinements, understand?
"It's fine!" he exclaimed when she stopped. "You have got it just right; horses' feet, and harness jingling. But you go back of that to the feeling one has when one braces up and sets one's mouth tight."
Evelyn laughed and looked at Mordaunt, who frowned. "Perhaps you are easily satisfied, Jim, but music, critical folks contemptuously call descriptive, needs some talent." She paused and beat out a few bars imitating a horse's gallop. "It really does go back of this."