‘Well, of course I couldn’t go to dances or anything of that kind just yet; but it is dreadfully tiresome to see no one from one day to another, to have no games or amusements of any kind.’
‘There are always the hills, you know,’ said Alec.
Laura glanced at her companion to see whether he was laughing, and perceiving that he was perfectly serious, she turned away her face with a little moue.
‘The hills don’t amuse me; they weary me; and sometimes, when I get up in the night and look at them, they terrify me. Think what it would be to be up among those rocks on a winter’s night, with the snowflakes whirling around you, and the wind roaring—ugh! Let us talk of something else.’
They did so, but there was little spirit in the conversation. Alec could not conceive of anyone with a heart and a pair of eyes who should not love these mountain-tops as he did himself. He had already endowed Laura with every conceivable grace, and he had taken it for granted that the power to appreciate mountain scenery was among her gifts. Here, at least, was a deficiency, a point on which his mind and hers were not in harmony.
With feminine tact Laura saw that she had disappointed her companion in some way, and she easily guessed at the cause.
‘I see you don’t appreciate my straightforwardness,’ she said, after a little pause. ‘Knowing that you have such a passion for mountain scenery, I ought to have pretended that I was as fond of it as you are yourself.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘That would have been polite; but it would not have been quite straightforward. I always say the thing that comes uppermost, you know; I can’t help it.’
Of course she did; and of course her simple honesty was infinitely better than even a love of Scotch scenery. The latter would no doubt come with more familiar acquaintance with it. And was she not herself the most charming thing that the sun shone down upon that summer day?