“Then come and join us,” returned Archie, with unusual affability. “Grace was just wondering what you were doing.”
“I was in the drawing-room alone. No, I cannot sit down, Archie, thank you. I am just going to bid old Mrs. Chamberlain good-bye: she is expecting me, and I must not disappoint her.”
“Oh, but it is not fit for you,” remonstrated Grace. “Sir Harry says the wind is piercing. Do put off your visit until to-morrow, Mattie, and we will go together.”
“Fie, Miss Grace! never put off until to-morrow what can be done to-day,” observed Sir Harry, in his joking voice. “What is it the copy-books say?—is it procrastination or money that is the root of all evil?”
“Sir Harry is quite right, and I must go,” stammered Mattie, made quite desperate by this joke; he knew how the wind was sweeping over the gray sea, and yet he had not said a word about her remaining. Poor Mattie! a miserable choking feeling came into her throat, as she closed the door on another laugh and struggled along in the teeth of the wind. Another time she would not have minded it, for she was hardy by nature; but now the cold seemed to freeze her very heart; she looked quite blue and pinched when she entered Mrs. Chamberlain’s drawing-room. It seemed to Mattie as though hours had passed before she brought her visit to a close, and yet she had been sitting there only three quarters of an hour before she took her leave. The old lady was very gracious this afternoon; she pressed Mattie again and again to wait a little until Sallie brought up the tea and a nice hot cake she was baking. But Mattie steadily refused even these tempting delicacies: she was not cold any longer, she said; but it was growing late, or the afternoon was darker than usual. And then she wished her old friend good-bye,—oh, good-bye for such a long time, Mattie thought,—and sallied forth bravely into the wind gain.
It had lulled a little, but the scene before her was very desolate; just the gray expanse of sea, with the white line of surge breaking into the shore; and here and there a wave tossing 352 up its foamy head in the distance. The air seemed full of that continuous low rolling and splashing of breakers on the beach: a sea-gull was flying inland; the Parade looked white and wind-bleached,—not a creature in sight but a coast-guard on duty, moving backwards and forwards in a rather forlorn manner, except––Here Mattie turned her head quickly: yes, a little beyond there was a man in a rough pilot’s coat, looking out seaward,—a nautical man, Mattie thought, by the way he stood, as though summer gales were blowing about his ears.
Mattie passed quite close to him, for the wind drifted her a little as she did so. He turned coolly round and confronted her.
“Sir Harry! Oh, I did not know you in the least,” faltered Mattie, standing still in her surprise.
“I dare say not,” he replied, quietly: “you have never seen me in this costume before, and I had my back turned towards you. I saw you coming, though, walking as unsteadily as a duck in a storm. What a time you have been, Miss Mattie! You ladies are so fond of a gossip.”
“Were you waiting for me?” she asked, rather breathlessly, and then colored painfully at her question. How absurd! Of course he was not waiting for her; his hotel was just opposite, and he was probably taking a constitutional before his dinner. “Mrs. Chamberlain pressed me to take tea with her,” she went on, by way of saying something, “but I told her I would rather go home.”