“And so you go, Mr. Greig?” she said. “There's but the one thing I would like to say to my friend, and that's that I should like him not to think unkindly of one that values his good opinion—if she were worthy to have it. The honest and unsuspecting come rarely my way nowadays, and now that I'm to lose them I feel like to greet.” She was indeed inclined to tears, and her lips were twitching, but I was not enough rid of my annoyance to be moved much by such a demonstration.
“I have profited much by your society, Miss Walkinshaw,” I said. “You found me a boy, and what way it happens I do not know, but it's a man that's leaving you. You made my stay here much more pleasant than it would otherwise have been, and this last kindness—that forces me away from you—is one more I have to thank you for.”
She was scarcely sure whether to take this as a compliment or the reverse, and, to tell the truth, I meant it half and half.
“I owed all the little I could do to my countryman,” said she.
“And I hope I have been useful,” I blurted out, determined to show her I was going with open eyes.
Somewhat stricken she put her hand upon my arm. “I hope you will forgive that, Mr. Greig,” she said, leaving no doubt that she had jumped to my meaning.
“There is nothing to forgive,” I said shortly. “I am proud that I was of service, not to you alone but to one in the interests of whose house some more romantical Greigs than I have suffered. My only complaint is that the person in question seems scarcely to be grateful for the little share I had unconsciously in preserving his life.”
“I am sure he is very grateful,” she cried hastily, and perplexed. “I may tell you that he was the means of getting you the post in the regiment.”
“So I have been told,” I said, and she looked a little startled. “So I have been told. It may be that I'll be more grateful by-and-by, when I see what sort of a post it is. In the meantime, I have my gratitude greatly hampered by a kind of inconsistency in the—in the person's actings towards myself!”
“Inconsistency!” she repeated bitterly. “That need not surprise you! But I do not understand.”