They said good-bye and shook hands; and then Miss Carry thought that Meenie looked so pretty and so shy, and had so much appealing gentleness and friendliness in the clear, transparent, timid blue-gray eyes, that she kissed her, and said 'Good-bye, dear,' again, and went out into the dusk and driving wind of the afternoon, entirely well pleased with her visit.
But it seemed as though she were about to be disappointed in both directions; for when she called in at Ronald's cottage he was not there; and when she returned to the inn, he was not to be found, nor could any one say whither he had gone. She and her father dined by themselves. She did not say why Meenie had declined to come along and join them; but she had formed her own opinion on that point; and the more she thought of it, the more absurd it seemed to her that this small handful of people living all by themselves in the solitude of the mountains should think it necessary to observe social distinctions. Was not Ronald, she asked herself, fit to associate with any one? But then she remembered that the Highlanders were said to be very proud of their descent; and she had heard something about Glengask and Orosay; and she resolved that in the future she would be more circumspect in the matter of invitations.
About half-past eight or so the pretty Nelly appeared with the message that Ronald was in the inn, and had heard that he was being asked for.
'What will I tell him ye want, sir?' she said, naturally assuming that Ronald was to be ordered to do something.
'Give him my compliments,' said Mr. Hodson, 'and say we should be obliged if he would come in and smoke a pipe and have a chat with us, if he has nothing better to do.'
But Nelly either thought this was too much politeness to be thrown away on the handsome keeper, or else she had some small private quarrel with him; for all she said to him, and that brusquely, was—
'Ronald, you're wanted in the parlour.'
Accordingly, when he came along the passage, and tapped at the door and opened it, he stood there uncertain, cap in hand. And Mr. Hodson had to repeat the invitation—explaining that they had wanted him to have some dinner with them, but that he could not be found; and then Ronald, with less of embarrassment than might have been expected—for he knew these two people better now—shut the door, and laid down his cap, and modestly advanced to the chair that Mr. Hodson had drawn in towards one side of the big fireplace. Miss Carry was seated apart on a sofa, apparently engaged in some sort of knitting work; but her big black eyes could easily be raised when there was need, and she could join in the conversation when she chose.
At first that was mostly about the adjacent shooting, which Mr. Hodson thought of taking for a season merely by way of experiment; and the question was how long he would in that case have to be away from his native country. This naturally took them to America, and eventually and alas! to politics—which to Miss Carry was but as the eating of chopped straw. However, Mr. Hodson (if you could keep the existence of lords out of his reach) was no very violent polemic; and moreover, whenever the Bird of Freedom began to clap its wings too loudly, was there not on the sofa there a not inattentive young lady to interfere with a little gentle sarcasm? Sometimes, indeed, her interpositions were both uncalled for and unfair; and sometimes they were not quite clearly intelligible. When, for example, they were talking of the colossal statue of Liberty enlightening the World which the French Republic proposed to present to the American Republic to be set up in New York Bay, she pretended not to know in which direction—east or west—the giant figure was to extend her light and liberty-giving arm; and her objection to her father's definition of the caucus system as a despotism tempered by bolting, was a still darker saying of which Ronald could make nothing whatever. But what of that? Whatever else was veiled to him, this was clear—that her interference was on his behalf, so that he should not be overpressed in argument or handicapped for lack of information; and he was very grateful to her, naturally; and far from anxious to say anything against a country that had sent him so fair and so generous an ally.
But, after all, was not this laudation of the institutions of the United States meant only as a kindness—as an inducement to him to go thither, and better his position? There was the field where the race was to the swiftest, where the best man got to the front, and took the prize which he had fairly won. There no accident of birth, no traditional usage, was a hindrance. The very largeness of the area gave to the individual largeness of view.