Dick made no reply, but it all seemed clear and intelligible to him; Pound's hold upon Mrs. Ryan, and the false position in which that fiend placed the woman at the meeting of husband and wife, which accounted for Ryan's misunderstanding and heartless treatment of his wife on that occasion; the reconciliation of husband and wife; their projected departure for America; the necessity of deceiving Pound meanwhile, and getting away without his knowledge. All these things seemed natural enough; and, told in the desperately earnest tones of a strong man humbled, they carried conviction with them. Nor were they pleaded in vain.
The way in which Dick finally put the matter was this:—
"Remember," he said, "that it is for my friends' sake as much as for yours; that this is our second treaty; and that if you break one particle of it there are always four men in the house here, and villagers in plenty within a cooee of us."
"I know all these things," said Miles, very humbly, "and will forget none of them."
And so the interview ended.
When Miles was gone, Dick lifted his gun, which had lain long upon the counterpane, pressed the lever, bent down the barrels, and aimed them at the glimmering window-blind. The early morning light shone right through the gleaming bores—the gun had been empty all the time! Dick felt ashamed of the part that it had played in the interview.
XXI
AN ALTERED MAN
Colonel Bristo was rambling about the place, according to habit, for a good hour the next morning before the early breakfast, but he saw nothing of Dick until the bell rang for that meal.
"I thought you meant turning out early?" said the old fellow to the young one, with a smile. "I've been looking for you in vain; but I'm glad you followed my advice and took it easy. Did you sleep well, though? That's the main thing; and 'pon my soul, you look as though you had been awake all night!"
"Oh, I was all right, thanks, sir; I slept pretty well," said Dick, with awkward haste.
The Colonel felt pretty sure that Dick had been all wrong, and slept not at all. There was a haggard look about him that put the fact beyond the contradiction of words.
"You didn't see Miles, I suppose?" said the Colonel after a moment's thought. "His room is close to yours, you know."
"I did see him. We—we exchanged a few words."
Dick's tone and manner were strange.
"Confound them both!" thought the Colonel. "They have clashed already. Yes, that is it. I wonder how it came about? I didn't think they were such implacable foes. Mrs. Parish hinted to me long ago that they were, and that it would be best not to have them here together. Is it all on Alice's account, I wonder? Anyway, it is by no scheme of mine that they are here together. Why, I wrote Miles a list of our little party without a word about Dick. I never thought Dick was coming. Yet I am glad now he is come."
"It was really kind of you," said Colonel Bristo aloud, "to give in and come after all."
"No," said Dick, with sudden fire. "I'm thankful I came! I am grateful to you for refusing to take my first refusal. Now that I am here, I would not be elsewhere at this moment for the whole world!"
The Colonel was pleased, if a little puzzled, by this vehement outburst.
"Are you really going out again—back to the bush?" he said presently.
"Yes," said Dick, the fire within him quickly quenched. "I have quite settled that point—though I have told no one but you, Colonel Bristo."
"Well, well—I think you are making a sad mistake; but of course every man decides for himself."
That was all Colonel Bristo said just then, for he knew that the young people had barely seen one another as yet. But up on the moor, an hour or two later, when the guns divided, he felt inclined to say something sharp, for the manner in which Dick avoided shooting with Miles was rather too pointed, and a good deal too ridiculous and childish for the Colonel's fancy.
That evening the conversation at the Colonel's dinner, and that around the beer-stained board—dedicated of an evening to the engrossing domino—in the inn at Gateby, were principally upon the selfsame topic—to wit, the excellence of Miles's shooting.
"I can't conceive," said the Colonel, "seeing that you have never shot grouse in your life before, how you do it."
"If I couldn't shoot straight," said the hero of the evening (for the bag that day was the biggest yet, thanks to Miles), "I ought to be shot myself. I was reared on gunpowder. In the bush—instead of the silver spoon in your mouth—you are born with a fire-arm in your hand!"
Dick smiled grimly to himself. And yet this was the longest speech the Australian had made all the evening. Miles was strangely subdued, compared with what he had been at Graysbrooke. The Colonel and his daughter had each noticed this already; and as for Mrs. Parish, she was resolved to "speak up" on the subject to Alice, whom she blamed for it entirely.
"Yon yoong man—him 't coomed las' night—t' long wan, I mean," declared Andy Garbutt in the pot-house, banging down his fourth glass (empty) upon the table, which upset several dominoes and led to "language"—"yon yoong man's t'bes' shot I iver seed. The way he picked off t'ould cocks, an' let be t'yoongsters an' all, was sumthink clever. I niver seed owt like it. They do say 'tis his first taast o' t'mowers—but we isn't the lads to swaller yon! Bob Rutter, y' ould divle—fill oop t' glasses."
And though perhaps, hyperbole ran riot upon the heels of intoxication, still in Robert Rutter's genial hostelry "t' long chap's" reputation was there and then established.
But the marked change in Miles's manner was, to those who had known him best before, inexplicable. Never had a shooting-party a more modest, mild, and unassuming member, even among the worst of shots; and Miles was, if anything, better than Captain Awdry. His quiet boastfulness was missing. He might have passed the weeks since the beginning of July in some school of manners, where the Colonial angles had been effectually rounded off, and the old free-and-easy habits toned down. Not that he was shy or awkward—Miles was not the man to become either the one or the other; but his manner had now—towards the Colonel, for instance, and Alice—a certain deference-with-dignity, the lack of which had been its worst fault before. Dick, who scarcely spoke three words to him in as many days, suddenly awoke to a sense of relief and security.
"Poor fellow!" he thought, "he is keeping his word this time, I must own. Well, I am glad I didn't make a scene; and the week is half over. When it is quite over, I shall be still more glad that I let him off. For, after all, I owe him my life. I am sorry I threatened him during our interview, and perhaps I need not have avoided him so studiously since. Yet I am watching him, and he knows it. I watch him sometimes when he cannot possibly know it, and for the life of me I can see nothing crooked. My belief is that he's only too thankful to get off on the terms, and that he wouldn't break them for as much as his life is worth; besides which, his remorse the other night was genuine."
Mrs. Parish, for her part, was quite sure that it was love unrequited with Mr. Miles, and nothing else. She fumed secretly for two days, and then "spoke up" according to her intention. What she said was not well received, and a little assault-at-words was the result.
Dr. Robson told Mr. Pinckney that he found Miles a less interesting man to talk to than he had been led to expect from his conversation the first evening. Mr. Pinckney replied that if all the Australians were as unsociable, he was glad he didn't live out there. Though Miles, he said, might be a fine sportsman and a devilish handsome dog, there was evidently "nothing in him;" by which it was meant that he was not intellectual and literary—like L. P.