She lifted her face to his in the old mischievous fashion, and Rob studied it with a thoughtful gaze. If she hoped to receive a compliment in reply to her question, she was disappointed. It was not Rob’s way to pay compliments, and there was, if anything, a tinge of sadness in the tone in which he said:
“You have changed! It’s inevitable, I suppose, but I have always thought of you as I saw you last, and don’t seem to recognise the new edition. You have grown-up, but you’ve grown-up very small! There seems less of you than ever. Was the climate too much for you out there? I should have liked to have seen you looking stronger, Peg!”
“Oh, I’m a wiry little person!” said Peggy lightly. “You needn’t be anxious about me;” but she coughed as she spoke, and lay back against the cushions, for really it was rather nice to have Rob anxious about her, and to see the troubled tenderness in his eyes! She fluttered her fan to and fro in a feeble, exhausted fashion, while Rob continued to stare and to frown.
“You look too much like the rest of ’em. That’s what I complain of!” he said discontentedly, eyeing the details of her dress, and pointing with a long brown finger to the bracelets on her wrist. “All these fixings-up! Have you grown into a fashionable young lady, by any chance, Mariquita? Are you going to join the social treadmill, and spend your time in a rush after gaiety and enjoyment? or are you the same little girl I used to know, who had an ideal of her own, and wanted to do something grand and noble with her life? Which of the two is it? I can’t decide!”
“Oh, Rob!” cried Peggy piteously, and clapped her hands together. “Oh, Rob, it’s both! I do want to be good more than anything else in the world. That wish is always there, at the very bottom of my heart, and at any moment, if I were called upon to choose, I would give up anything—anything! to do what was right. But I want to enjoy myself too, and to have some fun, and go about to everything that is going on, and wear pretty clothes, and be—be admired, and praised, and flattered! There! I couldn’t say so to any one else, but I always did confide in you, Rob; and you won’t be shocked. I seem to have two separate sides, and the worst side is often the strongest. Do you think it is very wrong of me, Rob? I’m so young, you see, so young, and so fond of amusement!”
“Poor little Peg!” said Rob tenderly. “Poor little Peg! You were always an honest little soul, and owned up about your failings. Well, there it is, and you must fight it out for yourself. No one can help you in a case like this, and you’ll come out all right in the end, so long as you keep a true heart. I suppose it’s only natural that you should want your fling. Most girls do, and find a mysterious pleasure in gadding about, and dressing themselves up like dolls.” He scanned her once again with amused, half-angry admiration. “You are mighty smart, Miss Mariquita—a very fine bird! It must have taken a long time to put on all those feathers. Are those what you call your feet? Have you been going in for the binding system in India, may I ask?”
“What is the matter with my feet?” queried Peggy, in a tone of injury, as she stretched out two satin slippers, which seemed suddenly to become of Liliputian dimensions when contrasted with Rob’s huge square-toed shoes. “They are very useful little feet, and can carry me about just as well as your great ironclads can carry you. You used to say yourself that I walked uncommonly well for a girl.”
“I did, and I’m glad to find you have not outgrown the accomplishment. Do you remember the red Tam o’ Shanter, Peggy? I found it on its peg when I went to the vicarage after you had left, and walked off with it in my pocket. There was a hue and cry when its loss was discovered, for it had been kept as a sort of fetish, but I refused to restore it. I’ll give it back to you, though, if you will promise to wear it in the country when I can see you!”
“I will, with pleasure, every single day when it’s not too hot. Dear old Tam! It will remind me of our old times together, when we were so happy, and thought ourselves so miserable, because lessons were hard, or our plans went wrong, or we couldn’t agree. But you and I never quarrelled, Rob, we were always friends, and—”
“Partners!” said Rob softly; and Peggy stared fixedly across the room, and once again the floor described that curious upward tilt, and a kaleidoscope whirl of colour flew past.