Afterwards while we were walking home Hugh looked edgeways at me.
"Angus," said he gravely, "I should not like to have your responsibility. Are you sure that she will take to the family at Château Schneider? Or they to her? We are rather a handful, you know, and she—well, she is not exactly ordinary."
"As to that I don't know," I said sharply, for I did not like to hear my darling project decried or even suspected, "and what is more, I don't care. The garden and the Garden Cottage at Gobelet are large enough and safe enough."
"Pardon," he retorted, more unpleasantly than he had ever spoken to me. "I was under the impression that Alida was going to Aramon for society."
"Well, and suppose she finds it without crossing the bridge—what then?"
"Oh, nothing," he said, "I was only considering what you meant to do for yourself in the way of a career!"
CHAPTER XIX
KELLER BEY COMES TO ARAMON
Keller Bey came to Aramon ten days after the time of our return. Before letting us go Alida decided that I must write her every day, and Hugh once a week. She had never seen a line from either, but she judged from our faculty of conversation—often quite a false test, as witness Cowper and Gray.