"We will go after them," he said, "and, if we miss them, cannot I see you home?"
"But that would be taking you from your friends," said Miss Jean, with wondering eyes and much-divided wishes. As, however, even in this moment, she was already separated from Margaret, there was nothing to be done but accept his companionship.
Jean was in a ferment of excitement and anxiety. It was what she had wished and hoped for—it was delightful—it filled her with an exhilarating sense of help and satisfaction; but, at the same time, if it should turn out to be going against Margaret! How difficult it is in such a terrible, unlooked-for crisis to know exactly what to do! She did what her heart desired, which is the most general solution.
"They will probably turn at the end, and then I can go back to them," she said. "And why should Margaret object? for you have always been my friend."
"Yes," said Lewis, "you will recollect it was you I knew first in the family: and I was always supposed to be your visitor. What pleasant hours those were at the piano! Ah, you could not be so cruel as to pass me, to treat me like a stranger. We are in each other's confidence," he said, looking so kindly, tenderly at her, with a meaning in his eyes which Miss Jean understood, and which delivered her at once out of her little flutter of timidity. She answered him with a look, and became herself once more.
"It is so indeed," she said. "We have both opened our hearts to one another, though I might be your mother. And glad, glad I am to see you. I feel a little lost among all these people, though it is very interesting to watch them: but I am just most happy when I come upon a kent face. And have you been long in London, and have you friends here? Without that there is but little pleasure in it," Miss Jean said, with a suppressed sigh.
Then Lewis began to tell her that he had been in town for a week or two, and had gone everywhere looking for her and her sisters; that he had found abundance of friends, people whom he had met abroad, who had known him "in my god-father's time," he said.
"I think I know almost all the diplomatic people, and they are a host; and it is wonderful to find how many people one has come across, for everybody goes abroad."
Jean listened with admiration and a sigh.
"There are few," she said, "of these kind of persons that come in our way, either at Murkley or Gowanbrae."