Marcus refused to wait even for the joy of wresting Shan’t from her aunt. He was furious. Miss Carston had deliberately made a fool of him; in doing it she had made a fool of herself, too, but that did not make it any the better. With herself she might do what she liked; but she had no right to treat him as she had done. He had come inspired with the best motives; had been thinking of nothing but the happiness of Diana. To secure that he had been willing to forget everything that had passed between himself and the aunt.
That there was something she had promised Diana not to tell him was quite evident, but she might have adopted some other means of keeping her promise. Was it likely he would have wished to hear anything Diana did not wish to tell him?
That was a question an injured man might ask himself without guessing the right answer.
He had said he would wait in London for Shan’t—he could not disappoint the child, and her Nannie had promised to deliver her up the next day with sufficient overalls, jerseys, shoes, and socks, etc., for a fortnight.
“You can manage the journey, sir?” Nannie had asked, doubting, and Mr. Maitland had said a housemaid was returning to Scotland with him who would look after her.
So Shan’t went to Scotland, and about what happened on the journey Uncle Marcus forever held his speech, but he was a wreck when he got to Glenbossie, and was thankful to hand her over to a housemaid who could manage her. The travelling one had signally failed. “She didn’t understand me a bit,” said Shan’t; “she simply couldn’t keep me in order, could she?”—this triumphantly to Uncle Marcus. “She could not,” he agreed; whereupon she informed him that it was no use just telling her not to do things. “You must be firm,” she explained.
“I see,” said Uncle Marcus.
Shan’t must have written a letter full of boastful arrogance to Dick, because she got one from him, by what she called “returnal post,” and in it he said: “I don’t suppose your place is like this—it’s simply toppin’. Mr. Taboret got forty brace of grouse to his own gun the other day, and not content with that effort he went out when it was yet light and got three salmon! I saw him do the mighty deed—then in the evening he danced—he wears a kilt—does Uncle Marcus? This house is about as big as the Albert Hall in London, I should think, from what I can remember of it. They got four hundred brace of grouse the other day—I sat in a butt, with a Duke, I think he was, but he wasn’t at all a bad sort of chap; he wore a kilt too and his beard was red”: in answer to which Shan’t wrote a pithy post-card: “we shoot dere hear,” which brought forth a stinging reply: “I have shot two roe deer—not dere; you spelt it wrong—write it out four hundred times—it’s not supposed to be good form to shoot roe deer with a shot-gun; does Uncle Marcus?”
“Do you?” asked Shan’t anxiously of her uncle, her sporting world trembling in the balance.
“No.”