He dared not answer. He felt in his inmost heart that it would not.
"Ah, well," said Mrs. Lavender, "young people have much satisfaction in being proud: when they come to my age, they may find they would have been happier if they had been less disdainful."
"It is not disdain, Mrs. Lavender," said Sheila gently.
"Whatever it is," said the old woman, "I must remind you two people that I am an invalid. Go away and have luncheon: Paterson will look after you. Mr. Ingram, give me that book, that I may read myself into a nap, and don't forget what I expect of you."
Ingram suddenly remembered. He and Sheila and Mairi sat down to luncheon in the dining-room, and while he strove to get them to talk about Borva he was thinking all the time of the extraordinary position he was expected to assume toward Sheila. Not only was he to be the repository of the secret of her place of residence, and the message-carrier between herself and her husband, but he was also to take Mrs. Lavender's fortune, in the event of her dying, and hold it in trust for the young wife. Surely this old woman, with her suspicious ways and her worldly wisdom, would not be so foolish as to hand him over all her property, free of conditions, on the simple understanding that when he chose he could give what he chose to Sheila? And yet that was what she had vowed she would do, to Ingram's profound dismay.
He labored hard to lighten the spirits of those two girls. He talked of John the Piper, and said he would invite him up to London, and described his probable appearance in the Park. He told them stories of his adventures while he was camping out with some young artists in the Western Highlands, and told them anecdotes, old, recent and of his own invention, about the people he had met. Had they heard of the steward on board one of the Clyde steamers who had a percentage on the drink consumed in the cabin, and who would call out to the captain, "Why wass you going so fast? Dinna put her into the quay so fast! There is a gran' company down below, and they are drinking fine!" Had he ever told them of the porter at Arran who had demanded sixpence for carrying up some luggage, but who, after being sent to get a sovereign changed, came back with only eighteen shillings, saying, "Oh yes, it iss sexpence! Oh, ay, it iss sexpence! But it iss two shullens ta you!" Or of the other, who after being paid hung about the cottage-door for nearly an hour, until Ingram, coming out, asked him why he had waited; whereupon he said, with an air of perfect indifference, "Oo, ay, there was something said about a dram; but hoot toots! it is of no consequence whatever!" And was it true that the sheriff of Stornoway was so kind-hearted a man that he remitted the punishment of certain culprits, ordained by the statute to be whipped with birch rods, on the ground that the island of Lewis produced no birch, and that he was not bound to import it? And had Mairi heard any more of the Black Horse of Loch Suainabhal? And where had she pulled those splendid bunches of bell-heather?
He suddenly stopped, and Sheila looked up with inquiring eyes. How did he know that Mairi had brought those things with her? Sheila saw that he must have gone up with her husband, and must have seen the room which she had decorated in imitation of the small parlor at Borvabost. She would rather not think of that room now.
"When are you going to the Lewis?" she asked of him with her eyes cast down.
"Well, I think I have changed my mind about that, Sheila. I don't think I shall go to the Lewis this autumn."
Her face became more and more embarrassed: how was she to thank him for his continued thoughtfulness and self-sacrifice?