Tam o' the Scoots Part 25

The other girl laughed. "Well, there are many ways of a friendship,"

she smiled; "there's the 'If-you-come-to-my-town-look-me-up' way.

There's the 'You'll-write-every-day' way--and--" She hesitated again.

"Go on," said Vera calmly.

"And there's--well, the conventional way."

Vera smiled. "I can't imagine Tam doing anything conventional," she said.

Elizabeth jumped up with a laugh, walked to the little bare dressing-table and began brushing her hair.

"Why do you laugh?" asked Vera.

"The whole thing's so curious," replied the girl. "Here's a man who is head-over-heels in love with you--"

"In love with me!"

Vera Laramore went red and white by turns and lost, for a moment, her grasp of the situation, then grew virtuously indignant, which was a tactical error for if she were innocent of such a thought as that which her friend expressed she should have been either amused or curious.

"How can you talk such rubbish? Tam and I are jolly good friends. He is a real fine man, as straight as a die and as plucky as he's straight. He has more sense, more judgment--" She was breathless.

"Spare me the catalogue of his virtues," said Elizabeth drily. "I grant he is perfection and therefore unlovable. All that I asked you out of sheer idle curiosity was: How is your friendship to be rounded off?"

Vera was silent. "I shall see him to-night, of course," she said with a fine air of unconcern, "and I hope we shall part the best of friends; but as to his being in love with me, that is nonsense!"

"Of course it is," said Elizabeth soothingly.

"What makes you think he is in love with me?" Vera asked suddenly.

"Symptoms."

"But what symptoms?"

"Well, you are always together. He drops bunches of flowers for you on your birthday."

"Pshaw!" said Vera scornfully. "I thought you had more knowledge of men and women. That is friendship."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Elizabeth politely.

"But honestly," asked Vera, "what makes you think so?"

"I won't tell you any more," said the girl, turning around and tying her hair, "but I will put a straight question to you, my dear; do you love Tam?"

"Of course not," Vera was red; "you are making me very uncomfortable. I tell you he is a good friend of mine and I respect him enormously."

"And you don't love him?"

"Of course I don't love him. What a stupid thing to imagine!"

"Such things have happened," said the girl.

"I have never thought of such a thing," said Vera; "but suppose I did, of course it's an absurd idea, but suppose I did?"

"If I were you and I did," said the girl, "I should tell him so."

"Elizabeth!"

"It sounds bold, doesn't it? But I will tell you why I make that suggestion, because if you don't tell him he won't tell you. You see, my dear, you are a very rich young woman, a very well-educated young woman, you have a social position and a large number of friends. Tam is a self-educated man, with no money and very few prospects and no social position, and, as you say, he is straight and honest--"

"He is the straightest and most honest man in the world," said Vera warmly.

"Well, in those circ.u.mstances can't you see, he would no more think of asking for you than he would of calling at Buckingham Palace and demanding the Kohinoor!"

"In America," said Vera, "we haven't those absurd ideas."

"Oh, shucks!" said Elizabeth contemptuously. "You seem to forget I was born in Pennsylvania."

And there the conversation ended, and for the rest of the day Vera was silent and thoughtful, excusing her taciturnity by the fact that she had a lot of packing to do and needed to concentrate her mind upon its performance.

The mortal foe to instinct is reason. They are the negative and positive of mental volition. The man who retains the animal gift of unreasoning divination, preserving that clear power against the handicaps which mind training and education impose, is necessarily psychic, or, as they say in certain Celtic countries, "fey."

Tam went up on patrol flying a new "pup"--a tiny machine powerfully engined, which climbed at an angle of fifty degrees and at a surprising speed. He pushed up through a fog bank at three thousand feet and reached blue skies. His engine was running sweetly, there was just the "give" in his little chaser, the indefinable resilience which a good machine should possess, his guns were in excellent order, his controls worked smoothly, but--

Tam was at a loss how to proceed from that "but."

He turned the nose of the "pup" to earth and planed down to the aerodrome.

Blackie left the machine he was about to take and walked across to Tam.

"Anything wrong?" he asked.

"Weel," replied Tam cautiously, "I'd no' go so far as to say that there's verra much wrong wi' the young fellow."

Blackie looked at him keenly.

"Engines--?"

Tam shook his head.

"No, they were wairking bonnily--there's nothing to complain aboot only I just felt that 'pup' an' Tam was no thinkin' the same way."

"Oh!" said Blackie.

He examined the machine, a new one, with the greatest care, tested the controls, examined and sounded stays and struts and shook his head.

"Take up Bartholomew's machine--he went sick this morning," he said.

Tam superintended the preparation of Lieutenant Bartholomew's "pup" and climbing in gave the signal.