None of us talked much to Barrie about her mother, though at first she was continually bringing up the subject. We knew she thought of it constantly: that beneath all her joy in escape from bondage, in motoring, and in her adventures in beautiful, historic scenes, there was always that undertone--"When I meet my mother." And we too felt the strain of suspense, though in a different way--at least, Somerled and I felt it. I could see it often in the peculiar darkening of his face when anything happened to suggest the idea of the mother in the background. As for Aline, I suppose it was but natural her only interest in Mrs. Bal should be, "How will her reception of the girl affect me, if at all?"
Aline's arranging to pick up the Vannecks at Dumfries gave her the excuse she's been longing for ever since the quarrel, to get me into Somerled's car, though she didn't wish to seem as if she were forcing herself upon him. Perhaps he might have found some way of shuffling out of it, but in St. Michael's churchyard at Dumfries she asked if he didn't think the "little romance a very pretty one?" He inquired what she meant. She appeared amused at his denseness--"so like a man!"--and said, "Why, what could I mean except dear Basil and little Barrie? I didn't know _any one_ could help seeing! But don't say anything, please. It might nip the orange-blossoms in the bud."
She told me this afterward, because I had to know if I were to "live up to it." And I'm afraid by that time I was ready to live up to it, whatever the consequences might be. That is enough to explain why Somerled without hesitation invited me to migrate into his car when Aline had filled up Blunderbore with a party of three guests. He might even then have kept Barrie in her place beside him, or have appointed me to it; but that wouldn't have been Somerled as I see him, saying to himself, "Let them have each other's society, since that's what they want. I don't know what _I_ want, or whether it's best for her or me that I should want anything."
Right or wrong about his state of mind as I may be whatever it was, he surrendered to me with an air of grave kindness which put on again the several years he had thrown off in the last week. (Yes, it was only a week that had made these changes for all of us!) Sitting with Barrie and her good friend Mrs. James (great character, that little woman: must use her in a book sooner or later), I knew just how passionately the girl was looking forward to the "surprise" meeting with her mother. My nerves were as tense as hers--even more tense, it may be, for I was like one behind the scenes, knowing what she did not know. I felt so sure the "surprise" was going to turn out differently from what she pictured that I had a sense of guilt whenever I saw her smiling dreamily. I was continually wondering what would happen, and what she would do when it did happen. And I had the impression that Somerled constantly brooded over the same subject, asking himself the same questions. The happier the girl was, the sorrier we both were for her, silently, without telling each other, and the more we wished to save her from any suffering to come. I knew that I could read so far into Somerled's thoughts, where they kept to the same road as mine; but I doubt if he were conscious of any fellow-feeling with me. I was to him only the most deeply infatuated and the most seriously in earnest of Barrie MacDonald's rapidly accumulating string of ridiculous young men.