"A surprise!" echoed Mrs. James, looking quite pretty and young, as she surprisingly does sometimes. "Does Barrie know?"
"No," said Somerled. "Barrie doesn't know."
There was just time to go to our new rooms and make ourselves respectable for church, no light thing in Scotland. Aline and the Vannecks hadn't turned up yet, but, knowing them and knowing Blunderbore, I thought nothing strange of the delay. Aline's game was, of course, to make Somerled jealous of George Vanneck, her old and well-worn chattel, whom she at heart despises, and to seem not too eager for his (Somerled's) society, while I, attached to his party by special arrangement, could protect her interests--and my own.
Somerled had ordered Vedder to wait with the Dragon when the luggage had been taken down, and thus we saved ourselves some minutes which we should have lost in walking. We left the car as soon as possible, however, and plunged into the beauty and squalor of the High Street on foot. I annexed Barrie as a companion, and Somerled did not fight for her. Quietly he contented, or seemed to content, himself with Mrs. James, and my impression was confirmed that, whether he wanted Barrie or not, he was deliberately standing aside in my favour, giving me my "chance"--perhaps to test Barrie or me--or both. Who could tell? Not I. Somerled is hard to read, even for a professional character-vivisectionist.
"Are you too much excited, and taken up with thoughts of your mother, to care about all this?" I asked the girl.
She admitted that she was excited, and perhaps a little absent-minded; but "all this," as I called it, was too wonderful not to capture her interest in spite of everything.
"Think of Queen Mary and her four Maries, and Darnley, and Rizzio, and Bothwell, and John Knox passing along as we pass now, on their way up to Holyrood?" said I.
"Yes. Oh, yes! I _do_ think of them," she answered obediently, her eyes straying into the shadows of wynd or close, or tracing out the detail of some carved gargoyle on an old façade.
"Well--one thinks of queer things in a place like this, full of romances and--and love stories. I was wondering----"
"Yes. Don't be afraid to tell me. We're fellow-authors, you know--brother and sister of the pen."