"I wonder if she would not have been even more annoyed with my presumption if I had offered her my arm," he said to himself, amusedly, "than she is offended by my neglect to do so?"
He did not follow the others into the blinding sunshine of the terrace. He had had a long morning's work, and was hot and tired. He looked at his watch.
"Past one o'clock; h'm! we are lucky if we get anything to eat before half-past two. All the servants have run out, of course. No use ringing for whisky and seltzer. All the better. But, at least, one can rest."
The pleasantness of the room refreshed his spirit. The interior of his own house in Brawnton was not much more enticing than the exterior. The doctor had no time to devote to such matters. He sat down very willingly in a big armchair, and enjoyed a moment's quiet in the shade; glancing through the half-closed green shutters at the brilliant picture without.
The top level of the terrace garden was carpeted with pattern beds of heliotrope, and lobelia, and variegated foliage. Against the faint blue-green of the opposite hill rose the grey stone urns on the pillars of the balcony; and from the urns hung trailing ivy geraniums with pink or scarlet blossom, making splashes of colour on the background of grey distance. Round the pillars wound large blue clematis, and white passion-flowers.
Lady Mary stood full in the sunshine, which lent once more the golden glory of her vanished youth to her brown hair, and the dazzle of new-fallen snow to her summer gown.
Close to her side, touching her, stood the young soldier; straight and tall, with uncovered head, towering above the little group.
The old sisters had parasols, and the canon wore his shovel hat; but the doctor wasted no time in observing their manifestations of delight and excitement.
"So my beautiful lady has got her precious boy back safe and sound, save for his right arm, and doubly precious because that is missing. God bless her a thousand times!" he thought to himself. "But her sweet face looked more sorrowful than joyful when I came in. What had he been saying, I wonder, to make her look like that, already?"
John Crewys entered from the hall. "What's this I hear," he said, in glad tones—"the hero returned?"