“It’s æsthetic, if that’s what you mean. But how odd! If you want something to sit on, why not take a blanket or an old coat?”
“Perhaps this isn’t to sit down on.”
I gaped. “What—what do you mean?”
She folded the stool and tucked it away again. Her smile was very sweet and provoking, and it held that little token of wistfulness which had never left it since Cosgrove’s death.
The skirt swung briskly out, and the sound of the little boots receded and died away. On what wild search was she bound?
Then I stopped eating, while the idea that grew in my mind spread its ugly branches. What might a stranger think? Not I, of course, who would stake my life she is better than gold, but some newcomer from the outside world, such as the Scotland Yard official due here this evening? Might it not seem a pose? This resolve to play the rôle of detective, this secret roaming through the House in man’s attire, this interest in my diary, and this secretive hunting on the hills—would they not appear parts of an assumed character? Ridiculous, of course—unthinkable, in actuality—but might it not be thought? And what trouble, even disaster, might not follow such a false impression?
Somehow I was not at all amused toward noon by an argument that sprouted up in the library between Crofts and Aire in connection with some phase of the Parson Lolly legend. Aire was devil’s advocate in this discussion, and Crofts persisted in pooh-poohing the tale as all nonsense, tommyrot, and rubbish.
“I thought you were a scientist,” bullied our host, but Aire contented himself with a chuckle, and moved toward the Hall, whence the voice of Lord Ludlow came in a kind of shrill moan:
“. . . fundamental decencies . . . civilized life.”
And I judged that Belvoir had just uttered some devastating platitude about the geisha girls or the way women choose their husbands in British Guiana. It occurred to me then a bit strongly that Belvoir plays the fool, and that if he really thinks our British morality unsuitable for a civilized temperament (i. e. his) he had better emigrate to the bush or to Terra del Fuego, where he may be uncramped among the broader and merrier folkways.