‘Do you think beautiful’s too much? Well, my dear, tastes differ; but I never saw anything that pleased me like the course of the river and the splendid trees. You should have lived in a hot climate to appreciate fully English trees.’
‘Oh, but I do,’ cried Joyce. ‘They are finer than we have—in Scotland,’ she said, after a pause. It had been on her lips to say ‘at home.’
‘Much finer,’ said the Colonel, with conviction; ‘but that is not exactly an answer to my question. I asked if you liked it—as your home.’
Joyce raised her eyes to him, moist and shining. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘it is you who are my home.’
‘My love!’ the Colonel stammered and faltered, in unexpected emotion. The water came to his eyes and blotted out the landscape. ‘You make me very happy and very proud, Joyce. This is more, much more than I had any right to.’ He took her hand in his and drew it within his arm. ‘I have wanted,’ he said, ‘to surround you with everything that your poor mother did not have—to make you happy if I could, my dear: but I scarcely expected such a return as this. God bless you, Joyce! Still,’ said the pertinacious inquirer, caressing the hand upon his arm, ‘that’s not quite what I asked, my dear.’
Joyce had twice avoided the direct response he demanded. She paused before she replied. ‘Some,’ she said, ‘father, are happy enough never to need to think, or ask such a question. I wish I had been always where you were, and never to have had any life but yours; or else——’ Colonel Hayward fortunately did not remark these two syllables, which were softly said, and breathed off into a sigh.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘under the best of circumstances that could never have been, for you know the most of my life has been spent in India. The worst of India is, that parents must part with their children. We should not really have known very much more of each other if—if you had been born, as you should have been, in your father’s house.’
‘Then there is little harm done,’ said Joyce, this time with a smile.
‘Not if you trust us fully, my dear, and love your home.’ He patted her hand again, then moved on unsatisfied. ‘I think, however, you are beginning to like the people, and feel at home among them. And they like you. I am sure they like you—and admire you, Joyce, and feel that you are—— There is Lady St. Clair, my dear, with all her bevy of girls. You will want to stop and speak to them. My wife says they’re the best people, but I’m not myself very fond—— How do you do?’ cried the Colonel cheerily, taking off his hat with a flourish. ‘Lovely morning! How do you do?’
The old soldier stood the image of good-humour and cheerful courtesy, holding his hat in his hand. There were so many ladies to share his bow that it was longer than usual, and gave the wind time to blow about a little the close curly locks, touched with gray, which covered the Colonel’s head with all the vigour of youth. His countenance beamed with kindness and that civility of the heart which made the fact that he was not himself very fond of this group inoperative. But when Lady St. Clair, picking her steps to the other side of the road, delivered in return the most chilling of faint bows, while her daughters hurried like a flock of birds across the park to avoid the encounter, Colonel Hayward stood dumb with consternation in the middle of the path. His under lip dropped in his astonishment, he forgot to put on his hat. He turned to Joyce, holding it in his hand, with dismay in his face. ‘What—what,’ he cried, ‘is the meaning of that?’