The two friends appeared promptly for dinner and brought with them appetites sharpened by the increasing cold. They had been in Richelieu-en-Bas and arranged for a telephone for the manor, called on some English friends visiting at the new manor house in the village, and stopped at some of the seigniory farmhouses on the way home. I found Mère Guillardeau had been remembered at this early date.
"Are you busy this afternoon, Miss Farrell?" said the Doctor, as we rose from our first meal together and went into the living-room.
"Not unless Mrs. Macleod needs me?" I looked at her inquiringly.
"No, there is nothing more, Marcia; you did a good day's work in a few hours this morning," she replied in answer to my look.
"Can I be helpful to you in any way?" I said, turning again to the Doctor.
"Yes--I think you can." He smiled quizzically, looking down upon me from his substantial height. "You may not know--of course you don't, how could you know, never having heard much of an old fellow like me--"
"Have you? Then the Boy here has been giving me away. Has he ever told you I am something of a whip?"
"Well, then, I am going to prove it to you. I propose to show the two French coach horses how to draw a pung,--Ewart does n't yet own a sleigh, you know in Canada,--and I wish you would lend me your company for an hour or so."
If the Doctor expected an enthusiastic response he must have been disappointed. Not that I did n't want the ride in the pung, but it occurred to me that here was my opportunity, offered without my seeking it, to ask of him all that I had been planning to ask during many weeks. As this door of opportunity was so suddenly opened to me, I felt the chill of the unknown creeping towards me over its threshold. I answered almost with hesitation:
"Certainly, I will go, unless Mrs. Macleod--"
"Mrs. Macleod says she does n't need you." He spoke quickly, his keen eyes holding mine for a moment.
"I say, that's a jolly cool way you have at times, Marcia!" Jamie exploded in his usual fashion when he is ruffled. "But you 'll get used to it, Doctor--I have."
"A martyr, eh, Boy?" The Doctor looked amused.
"Don't mind Jamie's martyrdoms, Doctor Rugvie; tell me when you want me to be ready."