I've taken the day off to see you out like this? Come on and I'll take you to the door."
She was, however, strangely disinclined to move, but remained with her head averted from him, her gaze drawn to Mary's dark and tender eyes, her lower lip drooping slightly, her thin fingers into locked and twisting nervously. The clear skin of her face, denuded of its one-time colour almost to a pale transparency, seemed stretched tightly over the puny framework of her features, its pallor accentuated by the fine-spun sheen of the flaxen hair which, now unplaited invested loosely the small, drawn countenance. She stood inert, realising that the climax of her endeavours was at hand and that she was loath to face it; then, suddenly appearing to forget the presence of her father, she advanced close to Mary and murmured in a low, almost inaudible tone, "I'm not wanting to go, Mary. I've got the band round my brow again. I would rather stay at home." Yet almost in the same breath, as though she were unaware that she had uttered these whispered words, she cried:
"I'm ready then, Father. I've got everything I want. I'm as right as the mail and ready to stick into it."
He stared at her, then relaxed slowly.
"Come on, then, and look sharp about it. What are you moonin' about her for? No more of your silly dawdlin' or you'll miss your train."
"I'll not miss it, Father," she cried eagerly, breaking away from Mary without looking at her as though she had not heard her sister's last murmur of encouragement or the promise to meet her at the station on her return. "No! No!" she exclaimed. "That wouldn't be like me to do a thing like that. I haven't worked all these six months for nothing. What an idea!" She drew back her narrow shoulders and, demonstrating her willingness by passing him and hastening into the hall, she went to the front door and opened it wide. "I'm away then, Father," she cried loudly and in a fashion something after his own manner. "I'll be back when you see me!"
"Hold on a minute," he exclaimed, with a frown, lumbering after her. "I said I was goin' to see ye to the door, did I not! What's come over ye that you're rushing like this." He surveyed her for a moment from beneath his heavy eyebrows, then, reassured by the brightness now manifested in her eyes, he cried, "You'll do, though you've got the look on ye as if ye couldna get to that examination quick enough. Away wi' ye, then. I'll warrant ye'll put your back into it. I've got ye just in the right fettle. Ye canna help but win it now."
He clapped his hands together as though shooing her off, exclaiming, "Off with ye now and put salt on that Grierson's tail."
"Trust me," she returned lightly. "I'll put so much salt on him that I'll pickle him!"
"Good enough," he cried delightedly, following her fondly with his eyes as she went out of the gate and down the road. She did not once look back. As he stood at his door watching her slight figure dwindling into the distance, he was filled momentarily by a powerful return of his old, proud, disdainful complacency. Gad! But she was a smarter, was his Nessie! As clever as you make them, with the sharpness of a needle, a sharpness that would prick that big, swollen bladder of a Grierson until the wind rushed out of him like a burst bagpipe. He had primed her well for the event too, made her as keen as a young greyhound to get out of the leash, and when she had left him just now, there had been a gleam in her eye that had fairly warmed him.
He had done that by his firm handling of the lass, forcing some of his own fire into her blood, filling her with a determination to succeed.
"Stick into it, Nessie!" That had been his slogan and one which was more than justified! She would walk away with the Latta, putting a hundred miles, or marks, or whatever it might be, between Grierson and herself. Grierson might even be last! With a grim smile at the relish of his thoughts, he slowly turned, sniffed the clear air with an added appreciation from his freedom, mounted the steps and went into the house.
Inside he halted aimlessly in the hall, losing something of the first flush of his elation in the realisation that, although it was not yet eleven o'clock and he was to-day a free man, he did not quite know what to do with himself; but after a moment he went into the kitchen and gravitated to his chair, where he sat watching Mary out of the corner of his eye, as she went about her morning tasks.
She made no comment upon his absence from the office and was, as always, quiet and composed, though to-day an added darkness lay in and around the pools of her eyes. In her manner she gave him no indication of the nature of her inward thoughts. He opened his lips to speak to her, to make some scathing comment upon the disparity between Nessie and herself barbed with a bitter innuendo concerning her past history, but he did not utter the words, knowing that whatever he said would be met by the same impenetrable silence. He would not speak yet! She could, he thought, be as dour as she liked and as quiet as she liked, but he knew what was at the back of her mind in spite of all her assumption of indifference. She was after his Nessie, interfering whenever she could, obstructing his intentions, laying herself out slyly at every turn to defeat his purpose. Let her wait though! He too was waiting and if ever she directly opposed him with Nessie, it would be a sad day for her!
As, without appearing to observe her, he followed the smooth, graceful movements of his daughter, an association of ideas confronted him suddenly with the memory of another woman whom he had loved as much as he hated this one Nancy, the ultimate object of his waking, yes, even of his dreaming, mind. Now, however, he
clenched his teeth firmly and shook the obsessing vision of her from his head, determined that nothing should mar the triumph of this day. It was Nessie that he wanted to think of Nessie, his solace who would now be sitting in the train, revolving in her clever brain some of these lessons which he had kept her at so assiduously, or considering, perhaps, the last exhortation he had given her. He had always felt that this would be a great day for him and now he was aware that he must not let himself become depressed, that he must sustain his spirits at that high level to which they had risen earlier in the morning. He would have a drink just to liven him a little.
His eye brightened as he arose from his chair and went to the dresser, where he opened the small cupboard on the left, drew out the familiar black bottle and now kept always in readiness beside it his own small tumbler. With the tumbler in one hand and the bottle in the other, he sat down again in his chair, poured himself out some whisky and at once savoured it gratefully, appreciatively, holding the liquor for a moment between his palate and his tongue. The first drink of the day always passed over his lips with a richer and more satisfying flavour than any other, and now it trickled so warmly down his gullet that he was impelled to follow it quickly by a second. The first had been to himself this would be in honour of Nessie! She might now be out of the train if she followed, as she undoubtedly would, his directions to get out at Partick Station, and might at this very moment be ascending the steep slope of Gilmorehill towards the grey pile of the University on its summit. He was conscious that this noble building, breathing of erudition, was well suited for the holding of the Latta examination, well worthy for the making of his daughter's mark within it. The professors might already have heard of her cleverness in some stray manner, for reports of brilliant scholars were circulated in devious but far-reaching ways in the academic world, and, even if this were not so, she had a name which they would recognise at once, which was a