第21章

"Isn't she happy, Uncle?" she exclaimed, lifting her brown, sunny face to him.

"Ay, lassie," replied Sir Archibald, lapsing into the kindly "braid Scots," "I ken fine how she feels."

"She's just perfectly happy," said his niece, "and awfully useful and good. She is just like you, Uncle."

"What? Oh, thank you, I'm extremely flattered, I assure you."

"Uncle, you know what I mean! Useful and good. Here you are in this lovely home--how lovely it is on a warm, shiny day like this!--safe from cares and worries, where people can't get at you, and making--"

"Ah, I don't know about that," replied her uncle, shaking his head with a frown. "Some people have neither sense nor manners. Only yesterday I was pestered by a fellow who annoyed me, seriously annoyed me, interfering in affairs which he knew nothing of,--actually the affairs of the Bank!--prating about his family name, and all the rest of it. Family name!" Here, it must be confessed, Sir Archibald distinctly snorted, quite in a manner calculated to excite the envy of any of his Wiltshires.

"I know, Uncle. He is a fool, a conceited fool, and a selfish fool."

"You know him?" inquired her uncle in a tone of surprise.

"No, I have no personal acquaintance with him, I'm glad to say, but I know about him, and I know that he came with Mr. Rae, the Writer."

"Ah, yes! Thoroughly respectable man, Mr. Rae."

"Yes, Mr. Rae is all right; but Captain Cameron--oh, I can't bear him! He came to talk to you about his son, and I venture to say he took most of the time in talking about himself."

"Exactly so! But how--?"

"And, Uncle, I want to talk to you about that matter, about young Cameron." For just a moment Miss Brodie's courage faltered as she observed her uncle's figure stiffen. "I want you to know the rights of the case."

"Now, now, my dear, don't you go--ah--"

"I know, Uncle, you were going to say 'interfering,' only you remember in time that your niece never interferes. Isn't that true, Sir?"

"Yes, yes! I suppose so; that is, certainly."

"Now I am interested in this young Cameron, and I want you to get the right view of his case, which neither your lawyer nor your manager nor that fool father of his can give you. I know that if you see this case as I see it you will do--ah--exactly what is right; you always do."

Miss Brodie's voice had assumed its most reasonable and business-like tone. Sir Archibald was impressed, and annoyed because he was impressed.

"Look here, Bessie," he said, in as impatient a tone as he ever adopted with his niece, "you know how I hate being pestered with business affairs out here."

"I know quite well, Uncle, and I regret it awfully, but I know, too, that you are a man of honour, and that you stand for fair play. But that young man is to be arrested to-day, and you know what that will mean for a young fellow with his way to make."

Her appeal was not without its effect. Sir Archibald set himself to give her serious attention. "Let us have it, then," he said. briefly. "What do you know of the young man?"

"This first of all: that he has a selfish, conceited prig for a father."

With which beginning Sir Archibald most heartily agreed. "But how do you know?"

"Now, let me tell you about him." And Miss Brodie proceeded to describe the scene between father and son in Mr. Rae's office, with vigorous and illuminating comments. "And just think, the man in the company who was first to condemn the young chap was his own father. Would you do that? You'd stand for him against the whole world, even if he were wrong."

"Steady, steady, lass!"

"You would," repeated Miss Bessie, with indignant emphasis. "Would you chuck me over if I were disgraced and all the world hounding me? Would you?"

"No, by God!" said Sir Archibald in a sudden tempest of emotion, and Miss Bessie smiled lovingly upon him.

"Well, that's the kind of a father he has. Now about the young fellow himself: He's just a first-class fool, like most young fellows. You know how they are, Uncle."

Sir Archibald held up his hand. "Don't make any such assumptions."

"Oh, I know you, and when you were a boy you were just as gay and foolish as the rest of them."

Her arch, accusing smile suddenly cast a rich glow of warm colour over the long, grey road of Sir Archibald's youth of self-denial and struggle. The mild indulgences of his early years, under the transforming influence of that same arch and accusing smile, took on for Sir Archibald such an aspect of wild and hilarious gaiety as to impart a tone of hesitation to his voice while he deprecated his niece's charge.

"What, I? Nonsense! What do you know about it? Well, well, we have all had our day, I suppose!"

"Aha! I know you, and I should love to have known you when you were young Cameron's age. Though I'm quite sure you were never such a fool as he. You always knew how to take care of yourself."

Her uncle shook his head as if to indicate that the less said about those gay young days the better.

"Now what do you think this young fool does? Gets drinking, and gets so muddled up in all his money matters--he's a Highlander, you know, and Dunn, Mr. Dunn says--"

"Dunn!"

"Yes, Mr. Dunn, the great International captain, you know! Mr. Dunn says he can take a whole bottle of Scotch--"

"What, Dunn?"

"No, no; you know perfectly well, Uncle! This young Cameron can take a whole bottle of Scotch and walk a crack, but his head gets awfully muddled."

"Shouldn't be surprised!"

"And Mr. Dunn had a terrible time keeping him fit for the International. You know he was Dunn's half-back. Yes," cried his niece with enthusiasm, suddenly remembering a tradition that in his youth Sir Archibald had been a famous quarter, his one indulgence, "a glorious half-back, too! You must remember in the match with England last fall the brilliant work of the half-back. Everybody went mad about him. That was young Cameron!"

"You don't tell me! The left-half in the English International last fall?"