suppose he blames me for lending myself to Mrs. Bal's wishes about
Barrie. Very unreasonable of him, as you have a perfect right to do
what you like with the car you've hired, and if Mrs. Bal didn't
want her daughter to see too much of _him_, what fault is it of
mine?

"I try to amuse myself as well as I can and forget my worries,
however, and Mrs. Bal and Morgan Bennett are being very nice. I
don't think he's proposed yet, or she would have told me, for we're
great friends; but she's pretty sure to land him before he leaves
for America, as he is to do the end of her Glasgow week, for a
short business trip. I expect to be asked to congratulate them the
night before he sails! What a good thing for her and _every one_
that the Vannecks can stand by you longer than we planned. I think,
unless you wire me that Ian has appeared upon the scene, I'll stay
with Mrs. Bal for her Glasgow week, as she has invited me, and
then, when the Vannecks go to the Round House, you can bring Barrie
back to her mother."

This explained Mrs. Bal's "best of reasons."

Days went on, and Somerled did not come to our part of the world, which
was by this time the heart of the Highlands; but I felt in my bones that
Barrie was hearing from him, writing to him; that she knew what I did
not know, the mystery of his absence. Of course I could have found out
if she were receiving letters from him, for Somerled's handwriting is
unmistakable; but villain or no villain, I had to draw the line
somewhere, and I drew it at spying upon her.

Aline did go to Glasgow with Mrs. Bal. She wrote to tell me how, with
Morgan Bennett in his biggest motor-car, "_much_ higher powered and
smarter than poor Ian's," she and Mrs. Bal and George Vanneck had sped
away from Edinburgh on Sunday morning early, had a look at their rooms
in Glasgow, and dashed on to Arrochar, where they all stopped till
Monday afternoon.

"Such an exquisite road!" [said Aline]. "You would have loved it.
High green bank on one side, with cataracts of bracken delicate as
maidenhair; dark rocks, wrapped in velvet moss. Trees holding up
screens of green lace between your eyes and the blue water of the
loch. Pebbles white and round as pearls, or silver coins dropped by
fairies in a big "flit." That's one of _your_ similes! Grass
running down to the edge of the water, and full of blu