One was a tall, stylishly dressed, handsome girl, of striking appearance. I had almost called her a woman, for although she was still young, her appearance could not be called strictly girlish. She might be about twenty-five years of age, and her face, though free from lines, suggested a history. I thought, too, that there was a lack of frankness in her face, and that she had a furtive look in her eyes. There was nothing else in her appearance, however, which suggested this. She gave me a pleasant greeting, and expressed the hope that we should have a good meeting in the little town near Granitelands, which was the name of Lord Granville's house.
'I have heard such tremendous things about you, Captain Luscombe,' she said, 'that I am quite excited. Report has it that you are quite an orator.'
'Report is a lying jade,' I replied; 'still, I suppose since the people at the War Office think I am no use as a fighter, they must use me to persuade others to do their bit.'
'Of course I am going,' she laughed, 'although, personally, I don't like the Army.'
'Not like the Army, Norah!' It was the other girl who spoke, and who thus drew my attention to her.
I was not much impressed by Lorna Bolivick when I had been first introduced to her, but a second glance showed me that she was by far the more interesting of the two. In one sense, she looked only a child, and I judged her to be about nineteen or twenty years of age. She had all a child's innocence, and _naïveté_, too; I thought she seemed as free from care as the lambs I had seen sporting in the meadows, or the birds singing among the trees. I judged her to be just a happy-go-lucky child of nature, who had lived among the shoals of life, and had never realized its depths. Her brown eyes were full of laughter and fun. Her frank, untrammelled ways suggested a creature of impulse.
'That girl never had a care in her life,' I reflected; 'she's just a happy kid who, although nearly a woman in years, is not grown up.'
I soon found myself mistaken, however. Something was said, I have forgotten what, which evidently moved her, and her face changed as if by magic. The look of carelessness left her in a moment, her great brown eyes burned with a new light, her face revealed possibilities which I had not dreamt of. I knew then that Lorna Bolivick could feel deeply, that she was one who heard voices, and had plumbed the depths of life which were unknown to the other.