CHAPTER XXIV
MILLICENT SUMMONS HER GUIDE
Lisle was living luxuriously in Victoria when Nasmyth’s answer reached him by mail. Though it was still winter among the ranges of the North, the seaboard city had been bathed in clear sunshine and swept by mild west winds during the past few days, and after the bitter frost and driving snow Lisle rejoiced in the genial warmth and brightness. There are few more finely situated cities than Victoria, with its views across the strait of the white heights of Mount Baker and the Olympians on the American shore, even in the Pacific Province where the environment of all is beautiful.
Lisle was sitting in the hotel lounge after dinner when three English letters were handed to him. The sight of them affected him curiously, and leaning back in his chair he glanced round the room. Like the rest of the great building in which he had his quarters, it was sumptuously furnished, but everything was aggressively new. There was, he felt, little that suggested fixity of tenure and continuity in the West; the times changed too rapidly, people came and went, alert, feverishly bustling, optimistic. In the old land, his friends among the favored few dwelt with marked English calm in homes that had apparently been built to stand forever. Yet he was Western, by deliberate choice as well as by birth; while there was much to be said for the other life which had its seductive charm, the strenuous, eager one that he led was better.
He opened the letters—one from Bella, announcing her engagement and inquiring about her brother; a second from Millicent, stating that it was decided that she would visit British Columbia in the early summer; and a third from Nasmyth, which, dreading its contents, he kept to the last.
He was, however, slightly reassured when he opened it. Nasmyth’s remarks were brief but clear enough. There was no actual engagement between Millicent and Clarence, though Mrs. Gladwyne was doing her utmost to bring one about and Millicent saw the man frequently. In the meanwhile, he did not think there was anything to be done; Lisle could not conclusively prove his story, though he could make a disastrous sensation, which was to be avoided, and it would be wiser to defer the disclosure until the engagement should actually be announced. Millicent’s attachment to Clarence was not likely to grow very much stronger in a month or two. In conclusion, he urged Lisle to wait.
On the whole, Lisle agreed with him. Somehow he felt that Millicent would never marry Gladwyne. Apart from his interference, he thought that her instincts would, even at the last moment, cause her to recoil from the match. Furthermore, turning to another aspect of the matter, he could not clear his dead comrade’s memory by telling a tale that was founded merely on probabilities. There was nothing for it but to await events, though he was still determined to start for England the moment Nasmyth’s letter made this seem advisable.
Shortly afterward, one of his business associates came in: a young man with a breezy, restless manner who would not have been trusted in England with the responsibilities he most efficiently discharged. In the West, a staid and imposing air carries no great weight with it and eagerness and even rather unguided activity are seldom accounted drawbacks. There dulness is dreaded more than rashness.
“I’ve seen Walthew and Slyde,” he announced. “It will be all right about the money; we’ll put the hydraulic plant proposition through at the next Board meeting. You’ll have to go back right away.”