But Mrs. Ogilvie allowed that she was a little anxious about Ronald’s first appearance at Gilston. It was inevitable that he should come; for all the early years of his life Gilston had been a second home to him. He had been in and out like one of the children of the house. Mrs. Ogilvie declared she had always said that where there were girls this was a most imprudent thing: but she allowed at the same time that it is difficult to anticipate the moment when a girl will become marriageable, and had better be kept out of knowing and sight of the ineligible, so long as that girl is a child. Consequently, she did not blame her predecessor, Effie’s mother, for permitting an intimacy which at six was innocent enough, though it became dangerous at sixteen.
“Even me,” she said candidly, “I cannot throw my mind so far forward as to see any risks that little Annabella Johnston can run in seeing Rory every day--though sixteen years hence it will be different; for Rory, to be sure, will never be an eligible young man as long as his step-brother Eric is to the fore--and God forbid that anything should happen to Eric,” she added piously.
On this ground, and also because Ronald had the latest news to give of Eric, it was impossible to shut him out of Gilston, though Mrs. Ogilvie could not but feel that it was very bad taste of him to appear with these troubled and melancholy airs, and to look at Effie as he did. It was not that he made any attempt to interfere with the settlement of affairs. He made the proper congratulations though in a very stiff and formal way, and said he hoped that they would be happy. But there was an air about him which was very likely to make an impression on a silly, romantic girl.
He was handsomer than Fred Dirom--he was bronzed with Indian suns, which gave him a manly look. He had seen a little service, he was taller than Fred, stronger, with all those qualities which women specially esteem. And he looked at Effie when she was not observing--oh, but Mrs. Ogilvie said: “It is not an easy thing to tell when a girl is not observing!--for all that kind of thing they are always quick enough.”
And as a matter of fact, Effie observed keenly, and most keenly, perhaps, when she had the air of taking no notice. The first time this long, loosely clothed, somewhat languid, although well-built and manly figure had come in, Effie had felt by the sudden jump of her heart that it was no ordinary visitor. He had been something like a second brother when he went away, Eric’s invariable companion, another Eric with hardly any individual claim of his own: but everything now was very different. She said to herself that this jump of her heart which had surprised her so much, had come when she heard his step drawing near the door, so that it must be surely his connection with Eric and not anything in himself that had done it; but this was a poor and unsatisfactory explanation.