"I'll be home early to-night, Mary," he said, "so don't worry about you know, staying up. And," he added hastily, "now that I'm going abroad I know you'll never mention it to a soul I would never like it to be known and thank you a lot for what you've done for me."
This unexpected gratitude from her brother, although its origin lay in a premature wave of nostalgia and was fostered by the cautious instinct to safeguard his memory against his absence, touched Mary.
"That was nothing to do for you," she replied. "I was only too pleased, Matt. You'll forget all about that worry out there."
"I'll have other things to bother about, I suppose." She had never seen him so subdued, or less self-complacent, and a glow of affection for him warmed her, as she said, "You'll be oil to see Agnes now. I'll walk to the gate with you."
As she accompanied him around the side of the house, taking his arm in hers, she sensed the change from the modish young man about town of a fortnight ago to this uncertain, timorous youth now by her side.
"You'll need to cheer up a bit, Matt," she remarked kindly.
"I don't feel like going, now it's come to the bit," he ventured casually.
"You should be glad to get out of here," she replied. "I know I would gladly go. This house seems like a trap to me. I feel I'll never get away from it, as if I might wish to but could not." She paused a moment, then added, "But then, you're leaving Agnes behind! That's bound to make all the difference. That's what's making you sad and upsetting you."
"Of course," agreed Matthew. The idea had not occurred to him before in this particular light, but as he turned it over in his mind it was distinctly comforting, and, to his vacillating self-esteem, profoundly reassuring.
"What does Father think of Agnes and you ?" Mary asked suddenly.
He gazed at her with astonished eyes before he replied, indignantly:
"What do you mean, Mary? Miss Moir is a most estimable girl. No one could think a word against her. She's a remarkably fine girl! What made you ask that?"
“Oh! Nothing in particular, Matt," she replied vaguely, refusing to liberate the absurd conception which had arisen in her mind. Agnes Moir, worthy and admirable in every other way, was simply the daughter of a small and completely undistinguished confectioner in the town, and as Brodie himself, in theory at least, kept a shop, he could not repudiate Agnes on that score. But it was he who had obtained this position for Matthew, had insisted upon his going; and Matthew would be absent five years in India. She remembered like a flash the grim, sardonic humour in her father's eyes when he had first announced to his shrinking wife and his startled son his intention of sending the latter abroad, and for the first time a faint glimmering dawned upon her of her father's mentality. She had always feared and respected him, but now, at the sudden turn of her thoughts, she began almost to hate him.
"I'm off then, Mary," Matthew was saying. "Ta-ta just now."
Her lips opened to speak, but even as her mind grappled dimly with her suspicions, her eyes fell upon his weak, daunted countenance striving ineffectually against discouragement, and she let him go without a word.
When he left Mary, Matthew tramped along more confidently, warming his enervated self-assurance at the glow she had unconsciously kindled within him. To be sure, he was afraid of leaving Agnes! He felt that at last he had the reason of his dejection, that stronger men than he would have wavered for a slighter cause, that his despondency did him credit as a noble-hearted lover. He began to feel more like Livingstone again and less like the raw recruit, whistled aloud a few bars of "Juanita", recollected his mandolin, thought, rather inconsistently, of the ladies on the Irrawaddy, or possibly in Calcutta, and felt altogether better. He had regained a faint shadow of his normal dash by the time he reached the Moir domicile and he positively leaped up the stairs to the door, for as, unhappily, the Moirs were compelled to live above their shop, there were many stairs, and, worse, an entry by a close. He had, indeed, so far recovered that he used the knocker with considerable decision and his manner had the appearance of repudiating the slightly inferior aspect of his surroundings as unworthy of a man whose name might one day shine in the annals of the Empire. He gazed, too, with a superior air, at the small girl who helped in the shop and who, now lightly disguised as a maid, admitted him and ushered him into the parlour where Agnes, released from the bondage of the counter although business hours were not yet over sat awaiting her Matt; to-morrow she could not be spared from her post of duty and would be unable to accompany him to Glasgow, but to-night she had him for her own.
The parlour was cold, damp, unused, and formal, with large mahogany furniture whose intricate design lost itself in a voluptuous mystery of curves, with antimacassars veiling the sheen of horsehair, and wax-cloth on the floor that glittered like a wet street. From the walls Highland cattle, ominous in oils, looked down dispiritedly upon the piano, that hall-mark of gentility, which bore upon its narrow, crowded surface three stuffed birds of an unknown species, perched mutely under a glass case amidst a forest of photographs. Agnes as an infant, as a baby, as a child, as a girl, as a young woman, Agnes in a group at the bakers' and confectioners' annual trip, at the Band of Hope social, at the church workers' outing all were there!
Here, too, was Agnes in the flesh: literally, for although short in stature she was already inclined, like the furnishings of the room, to a redundancy of curves, which swelled particularly around her hips and bosom, that were full, with the promise of greater amplitude to come. She was dark, with sloe eyes under sable eyebrows, with olive cheeks, and red almost thick lips, and upon her upper lip was a smooth umber shadow that lay softly, but with a dark, threatening menace of the future.
She kissed him with great warmth. She was five years older than Matthew and she treasured him accordingly, and now, taking his hand, she led him forward and sat down with him upon the unsympathetic sofa which, like the parlour, was sanctified to their courtship.
"And this is the very last night," she mourned.
"Oh! Don't say that, Agnes," he replied. "We can always think of each other! We'll be with each other in spirit."
Ardent church worker though she was, Agnes, from her appearance, had potentialities for a closer communion than this. She was, of course, unaware of it and would have repudiated it hotly, but her sigh was heavy as she said, "I wish you were nearer than India!" and came closer to him now.
"The time will fly, Agnes. In no time 111 be back with plenty of rupees." He was proud of his knowledge of the foreign currency and added, "A rupee is about one shilling and fourpence."
"Never mind the rupees just now, Matt; tell me you love me."
"I do love you; that's why I'm so upset at going away, I haven't been myself at all these last few days quite off colour!" He felt truly noble to have laid the burden of his suffering at her feet.
"You won't even speak to any of these foreign ladies, will you, Matt? I wouldn't trust them as far as I could see them a pretty face may cover a wicked heart. You'll remember that, won't you, dear?"
"Certainly, Agnes."
"You see, dear, there must be great temptations for a handsome young man out in these hot countries. Women will go to such lengths to get hold of a man once they get their eye on him, especially if he's a good young man that excites them all the more, and your little Agnes won't be there to watch over you, Matt. I want you to promise to be careful for my sake."
It was delightful for him to feel that he was so ardently desired, that already she was jealous of him to desperation, and, with one eye fixed already upon his future conquests abroad, he murmured solemnly, "Yes, Agnes, I see the truth of what you say. The way may be hard for me, but I'll let no one spoil me for you. It'll not be my fault if anything comes between us."