She feared to meet Somerled's eyes and read condemnation, yet her very dread forced her to seek them, and learn at once the best or worst, since suspense was unbearable. It seemed to her that he avoided her look; that he too was nervous and uncomfortable, while trying to appear at ease.
For a moment or two he talked of the car, which he had been to see, and of a sight-seeing expedition round Carlisle which Basil had proposed for the afternoon. Then he turned suddenly to Barrie: "I've been thinking over what we can do for you, Miss MacDonald," he said. "We don't know where your mother is now, but we do know that she'll be in Edinburgh the first of next week. Perhaps we might be able to find out her whereabouts meanwhile, but there'd be delay before we could expect answers to inquiries, if she's playing small towns in order to knock her new play into shape. You don't want to go back to your grandmother's. We're starting off in my car to-morrow. I've undertaken the responsibility of you, so I'm your guardian _pro tem_. I couldn't allow you to hang about alone anywhere. The alternative is, taking you with us in the car. What do you say?"
"Me in a motor-car!" exclaimed Barrie, rapturous. "It can't be true."
"It will be true if you say 'yes.'" Somerled spoke coolly, but it seemed to Aline that his eyes were alight. They were fixed on the girl, noting how she paled and flushed. Her face, seen in the golden lights and green shadows of the summer-house, had the texture of flowers. Aline had not known it was in her to hate any one so bleakly as she hated Barrie MacDonald at this moment; and she hated Somerled too, more than she had hated him last night. She ached to make him suffer as he was making her suffer. If only she could--if she but had the power!
This was the blow she had known would fall: the invitation to Barrie. Now the worst had happened despite the risk she had run for its prevention. And Somerled would not meet her eyes. Did this mean that he not only made light of her arguments, but had found out the falsehood on which they were based?
"Of course I say 'yes!'" Barrie was gayly answering. "It seems more than ever as if I were in a fairy story. Travelling for five days, in a real, live motor-car, to see my real live mother! Oh, if _Grandma_ knew!"