In the Mist of the Mountains Part 18

Anna looked uncertainly at the sitting-room door. "I--don't know for certain. Will I go and see?"

"Yes, immediately, please," said Hugh.

She did not ask him in at once: instead she took a few steps to the sitting-room door, opened it, giggled at the children, smoothed her face and turned round again.

"She's not in there, sir," she said. "Will you come in and sit down, and I'll go and see if she's anywhere else?"

Hugh strode into the sitting-room.

"Well, you'd think he'd wash hisself afore he came calling on a lady,"

said Anna to herself as she went in search of Miss Bibby, "an' brush his dirty hat. If that's what making books brings you to, give me bread,"

and she sent a loving thought to a certain dapper baker of her acquaintance.

In the sitting-room Pauline had screwed herself round and round on the piano stool till her knees were higher than the keyboard and she was able to contemplate her Serenade from a new point of view. She looked at Hugh in some excitement but without speaking.

Lynn, m.u.f.fie and Max had evidently been at work on their letters, but had all evidently pulled up suddenly, for each displayed a blot as a full stop.

Max was the first to recover himself. He remembered he had a use for this man.

"Did you ling me a lalagmite?" he demanded.

"Oh, yes," cried m.u.f.fie, "our stalagt.i.tes,--did you break some off? We knowed a boy that got one in a dark cave when the guard wasn't looking and pushed it up his sleeve to carry. Did you?"

"Not this time," said Hugh; "but look here, young people, I didn't come to see you to-day. Where's Miss Bibby?"

At this question Paul began to revolve faster and faster on a downward journey simply to save herself the embarra.s.sment of answering, and Lynn fell to writing a new sentence in her letter with great a.s.siduity.

But m.u.f.fie had no qualms.

"She doesn't want to see you, and she said we could talk to you and she wasn't at home," she answered.

"But she doesn't know yet who it is," objected Hugh.

"Yes she does," said m.u.f.fie, "she sawed you coming up the path."

"An' she lushed out of the loom," volunteered Max.

"Well," said Hugh, "she's got to see me, for it's very important. Will you go to her room, m.u.f.fie, and say Mr. Kinross begs to see her as a special favour?"

"Oh," said m.u.f.fie, "she isn't in her room. When you say you're not at home you go and stand out in the garden till the visitors go."

"You don't," argued Lynn, "only Mrs. Merrick; but mother says 'No,' an'

she never does, an' it just means 'engaged,' only it's not so rude."

"Well," said Hugh desperately, "will you penetrate to the spot in the garden where Miss Bibby's notions of honour may have taken her, Lynn, and say Mr. Kinross will be greatly obliged if she will see him for five minutes?"

"I really couldn't," said Lynn distressedly. "I'm very sorry, but I'm sure she wouldn't like me to."

"Very well," said Hugh, "I shall simply go and find her myself," and he pushed up the French window and stepped out into the garden.

"_We_ gen'ally hide ahind the waratahs or the bamboos, or up a tree's a good place," said m.u.f.fie, much interested.

If it were hide-and-seek about to begin, this is where Max shone. He laid down his pen and slipped down from his chair.

"I'll find her for you," he said. "I find licker than any one. Once I found Paul an' she was lapped up in the sheets in the linen less."

But Hugh had made off towards the bamboos without any help. He could see a moving dress beyond the loose striped leaves.

At the sound of footsteps on the gravel the skirts moved rapidly away.

"So!" he said to himself. "Very well, Miss Bibby, it's not dignified for persons of our age, but you'll give up this chase before I do."

She must have realized this, for, when they neared the waratahs she stood absolutely still and waited.

"You're in for it now, my fine chap," Hugh said to himself, "and she'll weep--she's just the sort to weep. Well, you jolly well deserve it, you brute."

Then he walked up to her.

She wore a dark blue cambric to-day with a soft leather belt and dainty white muslin cuffs and collar as a relief. The costume suited her infinitely better than the limp lavender had done.

The colour was ebbing and flowing in her cheeks; her grey eyes wore their startled expression. But she held out her slim hand, albeit it trembled a little.

"Good-morning, Mr. Kinross," she said, "slightly pleasanter weather, is it not? Though I rather expect a thunderstorm, and then perhaps that will be the end of heat waves this summer. What do you think? Must we expect another?"

"Er----" said Hugh, "I really don't know."

"Mrs. Lomax writes that it is delightful in New Zealand just now--just like fresh spring weather all the time. Both she and the Judge are feeling better."

"Glad to hear it," said Hugh, "but----"

"They are at Rotorua at present," Miss Bibby persisted. "The Judge is fortunate enough to have among his memories that of the country before the Pink and White Terraces were swallowed up. But they write that all is very beautiful still. Of course you have been in New Zealand, Mr.

Kinross?"

"Miss Bibby," said Hugh, "I did not come to talk of Pink and White Terraces to you before I removed the dust of my journey. I want to tell you how sorry----"

"I would rather talk of the Terraces, Mr. Kinross," Miss Bibby said, with a gentle dignity of manner that surprised him. But her soft lip quivered one moment.

"And, by George, Kate," he said afterwards, recounting the interview to his sister, "I nearly kissed her on the spot--just like I do you when I've been ramping round and have hurt you and want to make up. She was taking it so gamely."

"But I must talk of it," he insisted. "What a low ruffian you must consider me! I----"

"Oh, no," she said, "I--I quite understand now. I was importunate and at an infelicitous time. I recognize that I brought it upon myself. Well, people will forget about it presently--a new sensation will come along,"

she smiled faintly.

"I was in a vile temper that afternoon, certainly," he said, "and I treated you shamefully. But what I do want to make you realize is that I would have cut off my hand rather than have made you--or any one--publicly ridiculous. Will you believe that?"

She only looked at him very gently and without speaking.

"Don't you remember my coming up here--four or five days ago now? I was coming to tell you to burn the stuff, and then you know one of the youngsters stirred up an ant-bed and drove it out of my mind."