Even now she stood back in the shadows of the room, watching them all with large grave eyes, hoping that they would not notice her.
With Mr. Warlock and his son also Miss Smith seemed perfectly at home, chattering, laughing up into young Warlock's eyes, as though there were some especial understanding between them. Maggie, nevertheless, fancied that he, young Warlock, was not listening to her. His eyes wandered. He had that same restlessness of body that she had before noticed in him, swinging a little on his legs set apart, his hands clasped behind his thick broad back. He had some compelling interest for her. He had had that, she now realised, since the first moment that she had seen him. It might be that the things that that girl had told her about him increased her interest and, perhaps her sympathy? But it was his strange detached air of observation that held her—as though he were a being from some other planet watching them all, liking them, but bearing no kind of relation to them except that of a cheerful observer—it was this that attracted her. She liked his thick, rough untidy hair, the healthy red brown of his cheeks, his light blue eyes, his air of vigour and bodily health.
As she waited she was startled into consciousness by a voice in her ear. She turned to find the elder Mr. Warlock beside her.
"You will forgive my speaking to you, Miss Cardinal. I saw you at our Chapel this morning."
His great height towered above her short clumsy figure; he seemed to peer down at her from above his snowy beard as though he were the inhabitant of some other world. His voice was of an extreme kindliness and his eyes, when she looked up at him, shone with friendliness. She found herself, to her own surprise, talking to him with great ease. He was perfectly simple, human and unaffected. He asked her about her country.
"I spend my days in longing to get back to my own place—and perhaps I shall never see it again. I was born in Wiltshire—Salisbury Plain. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, they all were ministers of our Chapel there before me. They had no thought in their day of London. I have always missed that space, the quiet. I shall always miss it. Towns are not friendly to me."
She told him about St. Dreots, a little about her father.
"Ah, you're lucky!" he said. "You'll return many times before you die—and you'll find no change there. Those places do not change as towns do."
They were standing apart from the others near the window. He suddenly put his hand on her arm, smiling at her.
"My dear," he said. "You don't mind me saying 'My dear,' but an old man has his privileges—will you come and see us whenever you care to? My wife will be so glad. I know that at first one can be lonely in this great place. Just come in when you please."