After breakfast Steinmetz withdrew.
“Now,” said Paul, “shall I show you the old place, you and Maggie?”
Etta signified her readiness, but Maggie said that she had letters to write, that Etta could show her the castle another time, when the men were out shooting, perhaps.
“But,” said Etta, “I shall do it horribly badly. They are not my ancestors, you know. I shall attach the stories to the wrong people, and locate the ghost in the wrong room. You will be wise to take Paul’s guidance.”
“No, thank you,” replied Maggie, quite firmly and frankly. “I feel inclined to write; and the feeling is rare, so I must take advantage of it.”
The girl looked at her cousin with something in her honest blue eyes that almost amounted to wonder. Etta was always surprising her. There was a whole gamut of feeling, an octave of callow, half-formed girlish instincts, of which Etta seemed to be deprived. If she had ever had them, no trace was left of their whilom presence. At first Maggie had flatly refused to come to Russia. When Paul pressed her to do so, she accepted with a sort of wonder. There was something which she did not understand.
The same instinct made her refuse now to accompany Paul and Etta over their new home. Again Etta pressed her, showing her lack of some feeling which Maggie indefinitely knew she ought to have had. This time Paul made no sign. He added no word to Etta’s persuasions, but stood gravely looking at his wife.
When the door had closed behind them, Maggie stood for some minutes by the window looking out over the snow-clad plain, the rugged, broken rocks beneath her.
Then she turned to the writing-table. She resolutely took pen and paper, but the least thing seemed to distract her attention—the coronet on the note-paper cost her five minutes of far-off reflection. She took up the pen again, and wrote “Dear Mother.”
The room grew darker. Maggie looked up. The snow had begun again. It was driving past the window with a silent, purposeful monotony. The girl drew the writing-case toward her. She examined the pen critically and dipped it into the ink. But she added nothing to the two words already written.