"Look at me, darling," he said imperiously. "How can anyone spy upon us with these trees and high walls? I want to see how pretty and fresh you look—I want to forget that poor thing and her tale. Do you know that somewhere—far down in me—there's a sort of black pool—and when anything stirs it up—for the moment I want to hang myself—the world seems such an awful place! It got stirred up just now—not while she was talking—but just as I looked back at that miserable old soul, standing at her door. She used to be such a jolly old thing—always happy in her Bible—and in Jamie, I suppose—quite sure that she was going to a nice heaven, and would only have to wait a little bit, till Jamie got there too. She seemed to know all about the Almighty's plans for herself and everybody else. Her drunken husband was dead; my father left her a bit of money, so did an old uncle, I believe. She'd gossip and pray and preach with anybody. And now she'll weep and pine like that till she dies—and she isn't sure even about heaven any more—and instead of Jamie, she's got that oafish lad, that changeling, hung round her neck—to kick her and ill-treat her in another year or two. Well! and do you ever think that something like that has got to happen to all of us—something hideous—some torture—something that'll make us wish we'd never been born? Darling, am I a mad sort of a fool? Stop here—in the shade—give me a kiss!"
And he made her pause at a shady corner in the road, between two oak copses on either hand—a river babbling at the foot of one of them. He put his arm round her, and stooping kissed her red lips with a kind of covetous passion. Then, still holding her, he looked out from the trees to the upper valley with its scattered villages, its chimneys and engine-houses.
"It struck me—what she said of the men under our feet. They're at it now, Letty, hewing and sweating. Why are they there, and you and I here? I'm precious glad, aren't you? But I'm not going to make believe that there's no difference. Don't let's he hypocrites, whatever we are."
Letty was perplexed and a little troubled. He had only shown her this excitability once before—on that odd uncomfortable night when he made her sit with him on the Embankment. Whenever it came it seemed to upset her dominant impression of him. But yet it excited her too—it appealed to something undeveloped—some yearning, protecting instinct which was new to her.
She suddenly put up her hand and touched his hair.
"You talk so oddly, George. I think sometimes"—she laughed with a pretty gaiety—"you'll go bodily over to Lady Maxwell and her 'set' some day!"
George made a contemptuous sound.
"May the Lord preserve us from quacks," he said lightly. "One had better be a hypocrite. Look, little woman, there is a shower coming. Shall we turn home?"
They walked home, chatting and laughing. At their own front door the butler handed George a telegram. He opened it and read:
"Must come down to consult you on important business—shall arrive at
Perth about 9.30.—Amelia Tressady."