The History of Sir Richard Calmady. Lucas Malet

he said. "And I thought we came on purpose to see Mary. She won't like us to go away like this. Do ask."

      Colonel Ormiston's expression altered, hardened. And Richard, in his present hypersensitive state, remembered the cool scrutiny bestowed on the winged sea-gull of his dream last night. This man had seemed so near him just now, while they talked. Suddenly he became remote again, all understanding of him shut away by that slight insolence of bearing. Still he did as Richard prayed him. Miss Cathcart was at home. She had just come in from riding.

      "Tell her Sir Richard Calmady is here, and would like, if he may, to see her."

      Without waiting for a reply, Ormiston unbuckled that same chastening strap silently, quickly. He got down and, coming round to the farther side of the carriage, lifted Richard out; while Camp, who had jumped off the back seat, stood yawning, whining a little, shaking his heavy head and wagging his tail in welcome on the door-step. With the bull-dog close at his heels, Ormiston carried the boy into the house.

      The inner doors were open, and, up the long, narrow, pleasantly fresh-tinted drawing-room, Mary Cathcart came to meet them. The folds of her habit were gathered up in one hand. In the other she carried a bunch of long-stalked, yellow and scarlet tulips. Her strong, supple figure stood out against the young green of the lawns and shrubberies, seen through the French windows behind her. She walked carefully, with a certain deliberation, thanks to her narrow habit and top-boots. The young lady carried her thirty-one years bravely. Her irregular features and large mouth had always been open to criticism. But her teeth, when her lips parted, were white and even, and her brown eyes frankly honest as ever.

      "Why, Dickie dear, it is simply glorious to have you and Camp paying visits on your own account."—Her speech broke into a little cry, while her fingers closed so tightly on the tulips that the brittle stalks snapped, and the gay-coloured bells of them hung limply, some falling on to the carpet about her feet. "Roger—Colonel Ormiston—I didn't know you were home—were here!" Her voice was uncontrollably glad.

      Still carrying the boy, Ormiston stood before her, observing her keenly. But he was no longer remote. His insolence, which, after all, may have been chiefly self-protective, had vanished.

      "I'm very sorry—I mean for those poor tulips. I came to pay my respects to Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart, and not finding them was preparing to drive humbly home again. But——" Certainly she carried her years well. She looked absurdly young. The brown and rose-red of her complexion was clear as that of the little maiden who had fought with, and overcome, and kissed the rough Welsh pony refusing the grip by the roadside long ago. The hint of a moustache emphasised the upturned corners of her mouth—but that was rather captivating. Her eyes danced, under eyelids which fluttered for the moment. She was not beautiful, not a woman to make men run mad. Yet the comeliness of her body, and the spirit to which that body served as index, was so unmistakably healthful, so sincere, that surely no sane man, once gathering her into his arms, need ask a better blessing.—"But," Ormiston went on, still watching her, "nothing would satisfy Dick but he must see you. With many injunctions regarding his safety, Katherine made him over to me for the afternoon. I'm on duty, you see. Where he goes, I'm bound to go also—even to the destruction of your poor tulips."

      Miss Cathcart made no direct answer.

      "Sit here, Dickie," she said, pointing to a sofa.

      "But you don't really mind our coming in, do you?" he asked, rather anxiously.

      The young lady placed herself beside him, drew his hand on to her knee, patted it gently.

      "Mind? No; on the whole, I don't think I do mind very much. In fact, I think I should probably have minded very much more if you had gone away without asking for me."

      "There, I told you so, Uncle Roger," the boy said triumphantly. Camp had jumped up on to the sofa too. He put his arm comfortably around the dog's neck. It was as well to acquire support on both sides, for the surface of the glazed chintz was slippery, inconveniently unsustaining to his equilibrium. "It's an awfully long time since I've seen Mary," he continued, "more than three weeks."

      "Yes, an awfully long time," Ormiston echoed, "more than six years."

      "Dear Dickie," she said; "how pretty of you! Do you always keep count of my visits?"

      "Of course I do. They were about the best things that ever happened, till Uncle Roger came home."

      Forgetting herself, Mary Cathcart raised her eyes to Ormiston's in appeal. The boy's little declaration stirred all the latent motherhood in her. His fortunes at once passed so very far beyond, and fell so far short of, the ordinary lot. She wondered whether, and could not but trust that, this old friend and newcomer was not too self-centred, too hardened by ability and success to appreciate the intimate pathos of the position. Ormiston read and answered her thought.

      "Oh! we are going to do something to change all that," he said confidently. "We are going to enlarge our borders a bit; aren't we, Dick? Only, I think, we should manage matters much better if Miss Cathcart would help us, don't you?"

      Richard remembering the locked-up room of evil contents and that proposal of inclusive funeral rites, gave this utterance a wholly individual application. His face grew bright with intelligence. But, greatly restraining himself, he refrained from speech. All that had been revealed to him in confidence, and so his honour was engaged to silence.

      Ormiston pulled forward a chair and sat down by him, leaning forward, his hands clasped about one knee, while he gazed at the tulips scattered on the floor.

      "So tell Miss Cathcart we all want her to come over to Brockhurst just as often as she can," he continued, "and help us to make the wheels go round a little faster. Tell her we've grown very old, and discreet, and respectable, and that we are absolutely incapable of doing or saying anything foolish or naughty, which she would object to—and——"

      But Richard could restrain himself no longer. "Why don't you tell her yourself, Uncle Roger?"

      "Because, my dear old chap, a burnt child fears the fire. I tried to tell Miss Cathcart something once, long ago. She mayn't remember——"

      "She does remember," Mary said quietly, looking down at Richard's hand and patting it as it lay on her lap.

      "But she stopped me dead," Ormiston went on. "It was quite right of her. She gave the most admirable reasons for stopping me. Would you care to hear them?"

      "Oh! don't, pray don't," Mary murmured. "It is not generous."

      "Pardon me, your reasons were absolutely just—true in substance and in fact. You said I was a selfish, good-for-nothing spendthrift, and so——"

      "I was odious," she broke in. "I was a self-righteous little Pharisee—forgive me——"

      "Why—there's nothing to forgive. You spoke the truth."

      "I don't believe it," Richard cried, in vehement protest.

      "Dickie, you're a darling," Mary Cathcart said.

      Colonel Ormiston left off nursing his knee, and leaned a little further forward.

      "Well then, will you come over to Brockhurst very often, and help us to make the wheels go round, and cheer us all up, and do us no end of good, though—I am a selfish, good-for-nothing spendthrift? You see I run through the list of my titles again to make sure this transaction is fair and square and above-board."

      A silence followed, which appeared to Richard protracted to the point of agitation. He became almost distressingly conscious of the man's still, bronzed, resolute face on the one hand, of the woman's mobile, vivid, yet equally resolute face on the other, divining far more to be at stake than he had clear knowledge of. Tired and excited, his impatience touched on anger.

      "Say yes, Mary," he cried impulsively, "say yes. I don't see how anybody can want to refuse Uncle Roger anything."

      Miss Cathcart's eyes grew moist. She turned and kissed the boy.

      "I don't think—perhaps—Dickie, that I quite see either," she answered very gently.

      "Mary, you know what