The friendship of Allan and Olive was a source of some perplexity, if not amusement, to Eveline Graham, but of irritation to her mother, to whom they never seemed to act as lovers at all, unless in 'the Scots fashion' of pouting and quarrelling.
To the eyes of all interested in the matter, it did not seem that she cared for him in the least. She never altered a plan or hastened her pace to meet him, or go where he might chance to be—in the library, on the terrace smoking, or in any of the quaint corridors that traversed the old house. She never adopted a dress, a ribbon, or ornament to please his eye, though she sometimes did, coquettishly, he thought, to flatter Hawke Holcroft; and even now, as they were slowly traversing the dark, woody dell of the legend—the Coire-nan-Uriskin—she was humming, half in warning, half in waggery, Tennyson's song:
'She can both false and friendly be,
Beware! beware!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee!'
And yet, as she glanced at her soldierly cousin from time to time under her long, dark lashes, she thought that, though he looked stately in the kilt, he seldom looked better than now when in riding costume, with the smartest of light grey cover coats.
The girl's mind vibrated curiously between her over-sensitive pride, her wishes, her doubts, and half convictions.
If pique at her position in the family with Allan had made her accept, with a certain degree of equanimity, the attentions of Holcroft, she now began to feel a pleasure that she had not more fully encouraged them.
At such moments as the present Allan felt that this fair girl, who had ever been his friend—cherished as a sister—this sweet cousin with the violet eyes and rich brown hair—was dear to him with a tenderness to which he could scarcely give a name, unless it were purest love; and she might have read it in his eyes, intense and strong, but for that spirit of wilfulness which led her to temporise—was it to tyrannise?—or play with it and him.
But may a girl really love a man till she is certain of being loved in return? For Allan, baffled by her manner, had said nothing very pointed as yet, as if he based all their future on her father's will; and times there were when in pique he dropped his way of treating her half playfully, half deferentially, and became absolutely cold.
In fact, the thoughts of Olive, apart from her jealous pride, were somewhat difficult to analyse; but, as yet, she deemed that she could only regard him with a kind of sisterly attention; while he, when not irritated by the presence of Holcroft, would say to Eveline,
'When we are alone, and can slip back into our old memories, I shall soon teach her to love me.'