So much for the second stage in her knowledge of him. There was a third; she was in the midst of it. Her face flooded with colour against her will. "Out of the strong shall come forth sweetness." The words rushed into her mind. She hoped, as one who wished him well, that he would marry soon and happily. And the woman who married him would find it no tame future.
Suddenly Delaine's warnings occurred to her. She laughed, a little hysterically.
Could anyone have shown himself more helpless, useless, incompetent, than Arthur Delaine since the accident? Yet he was still on the spot. She realised, indeed, that it was hardly possible for their old friend to desert them under the circumstances. But he merely represented an additional burden.
A knock at the sitting-room door disturbed her. Anderson appeared.
"I am off to Banff, Lady Merton," he said from the threshold. "I think I have all your commissions. Is your letter ready?"
She sealed it and gave it to him. Then she looked up at him; and for the first time he saw her tremulous and shaken; not for her brother, but for himself.
"I don't know how to thank you." She offered her hand; and one of those beautiful looks--generous, friendly, sincere--of which she had the secret.
He, too, flushed, his eyes held a moment by hers. Then he, somewhat brusquely, disengaged himself.
"Why, I did nothing! He was in no danger; the guide would have had him out in a twinkle. I wish"--he frowned--"you wouldn't look so done up over it."
"I brought you a book this morning. Mercifully I left it in the drawing-room, so it hasn't been in the lake."
He drew it from his pocket. It was a French novel she had expressed a wish to read.
"I found Mariette had it with him. He sends it me from Vancouver. Will you promise to read it--and rest?"
He drew a sofa towards the window. The June sunset was blazing on the glacier without. Would he next offer to put a shawl over her, and tuck her up? She retreated hastily to the writing-table, one hand upon it. He saw the lines of her gray dress, her small neck and head; the Quakerish smoothness of her brown hair, against the light. The little figure was grace, refinement, embodied. But it was a grace that implied an environment--the cosmopolitan, luxurious environment, in which such women naturally move.