"It's queer, Gordon, but you seem to look at your three days of absence from the same point of view that Marcia does."
"How 's that?" he asked quickly, turning to me.
"Just Jamie's nonsense; it's only that I was on the lookout for you, and heard the bells when he failed to."
I knew I was growing reckless, but I did not care—why should I?—if he knew I was glad to see him at home again. I did not care if they all knew it—I must put Jamie right somehow. And what was there to hide? Not my gladness, not my joy, the new elements in my new life—this something I had never before experienced. Somehow, all my resolutions to keep this joy "to myself" went to the winds.
Mr. Ewart made no reply, but I knew I added to his evident pleasure in his return, by my ready and frankly expressed acknowledgement that I was "on the lookout" for him.
That evening was one never to be forgotten. It was a time when the friendship of the four men, Mr. Ewart, Cale, Doctor Rugvie, and Jamie Macleod, towards me, found expression both in jest and earnest; a time when Mrs. Macleod's kindly, if always a little remote interest in me was doubly grateful, for sure of it and its protection I could let the new life, that shortly before had awakened in me, flood my whole being and expand heart, soul and mind with its vital flux. I felt that I made my own place in this household; that I pleased them all; that they liked my speech, whether merry or grave; that they liked my ways because mine, whether I was lighting cigars and pipes for them, or frying griddlecakes at ten o'clock at night on the top of the soapstone stove, in redemption of my promise made months past. The truth is I felt at home, wholly, completely; and they, recognizing it, were glad for me.
With Cale, that evening, I was tender, teasing, arrogant by turns; I had him at my mercy—and his lips were sealed! With Jamie I was absolutely nonsensical, as I dared to be in view of his twisted interpretation of my apparently sentimental, "I can't live without you here etc." I bothered and puzzled him, much to the others' amusement. Into the Doctor's spirit of banter I entered with the enjoyment of a not very "old" girl. I caught him looking at me with the same perplexed expression that he wore when I first smiled at him three months before—and I kept on smiling, as I had cause, hoping the message, oft repeated, would carry in time to his consciousness the recognition that I was, indeed, the daughter of her whom he had befriended more than a quarter of a century ago. The emphatic statement made by Cale and Delia Beaseley that I was her "living image", encouraged me in this line of procedure. To the Master of Lamoral I gave willing service, frying for him delectable griddlecakes, turning them till a golden brown, flapping them over skilfully on his warm plate, and deluging them with incomparable maple syrup from his own sugar "bush". He received this service in the spirit in which I gave it, and the cakes with the appreciation of a man and connoisseur. Mrs. Macleod seconded my efforts in this special line of cooking and enjoyed the fun as much as any one of us.
"There 's no use, I 'm 'full up'," said Jamie with a sigh of exhaustion; he dropped into the sofa corner.
"I kept tally for you, Boy," said the Doctor.
"How many?"