He lay silent for a minute before he turned to her again. "You see, I have been some time in this country, and never have done anything worth mentioning. Chopping trees and driving cattle are no doubt useful occupations, but they don"t lead to anything. I feel that I am, so to speak, on my probation. I have still to win my spurs."
"I wonder if that is one of the ideas Miss Waynefleet gave you?"
Nasmyth smiled. "I really believe it originated with her, but, as a matter of fact, it might have gone no further, which is an admission.
Still, the desire to win those spurs has been growing so strong of late that I can"t resist it. In one way, I scarcely think that is very astonishing."
Violet looked away from him, for she saw the gleam in his eyes, and fancied she understood what the new motive he had hinted at might be.
Still, he did not appear disposed to mention it.
"Then you would have to go away?" she asked.
A flush crept into Nasmyth"s face. She was a woman of his own caste, and probably without intending it, she had shown him in many ways that she was not averse from him. He felt his heart beat fast when for a moment she met his gaze.
"The trouble is that if I do not go I shall never have the right to come back again," he told her.
"Then," replied the girl very softly, "you wish to come back?"
"That is why I am going. There are those spurs to win. I have to make my mark."
"But it is sometimes a little difficult to make one"s mark, isn"t it?
You may be ever so long, and it must be a little hazardous in that horrible canon."
"If it gives me the right to come back, I think it will be very well worth while."
"But suppose you don"t succeed, after all?"
"That," admitted Nasmyth, "is a thing I daren"t contemplate, because, if it happened, it is scarcely likely that any of my friends at Bonavista would ever be troubled with me again."
Violet looked away from him. "Ah," she said, "don"t you think that would be a little hard on them? Is it very easy for you to go away?"
The restraint Nasmyth had imposed upon himself suddenly deserted him.
He moved a little nearer to her, and seized one of her hands. She sat still, and made no effort to draw it away from him.
"I had never meant to say what I am going to say just now," he declared. "I had meant to wait until there was something successfully accomplished to my credit. I am, you see, a thriftless, wandering adventurer--one who has taken things as they came, and never has been serious. When I have shown that I can also be something else, I shall ask you formally if you will marry me. Until then the thing is, of course, out of the question."
He broke off for a moment, and held her silent by a gesture until he went on again. "I have been swept away, and even if you were willing to make it, I would take no promise from you. Until I have won the right to come back you must be absolutely free. Now you know this, it would be very much wiser if I went away as soon as possible."
"Ah," the girl answered with a thrill in her voice, "whenever you come back you will find me ready to listen to you."
Nasmyth let her hand go. "Now," he a.s.serted, "I think I cannot fail.
Still, it must be remembered that you are absolutely free."
He would have said something more, but there was just then a laugh and a patter of feet on the path above, and, looking up, he saw two of Mrs. Acton"s guests descending the bluff.
CHAPTER XX
NASMYTH GOES AWAY
Mrs. Acton was sitting on the veranda next morning when Nasmyth, fresh from a swim in the deep cold water of the inlet, came up across the clearing. It had brought a clear glow into his bronzed skin and a brightness to his eyes, and as he flung a word to a man who greeted him, his laugh had a clean, wholesome ring. He walked straight toward the veranda, and Mrs. Acton, sitting still, favoured him with a very keen and careful scrutiny. He was dressed in light flannels, which, she admitted, became him rather well; but it was the lithe gracefulness of his movements that she noticed most. His easy, half-whimsical manner had their effect on her; they won her favour. He was the kind of guest she had pleasure in welcoming at Bonavista.
He went up the veranda stairway, and, stopping near where she was sitting, looked down at her with a curious little glow in his eyes.
She started, for she had not expected to see it there so soon.
"You seem unusually satisfied with everything this morning," she observed. "There is probably some cause for it?"
Nasmyth laughed. "I believe I am. As I dare say you have noticed, tranquil contentment is one of my virtues. It is, however, one that is remarkably easy to exercise at Bonavista."
"Still, contentment does not, as a rule, carry a young man very far in this country. In fact, it is now and then a little difficult to distinguish between it and something else that is less creditable to the man who possesses it."
Nasmyth smiled good-humouredly. "Well," he replied, "I have discovered that if you worry Fortune too much she resents it, and flies away from you. It seems to me there is something to be said for the quietly expectant att.i.tude. After all, one is now and then given much more than one could by any effort possibly deserve."
Mrs. Acton noticed the faint ring in his voice. "Ah," she said, "then something of that kind has befallen you? Hadn"t you better come to the point?"
Nasmyth became grave. "Madam," he said, "I have a confession to make.
I am very much afraid I lost my head yesterday, and I should not be astonished if you were very angry with me."
He spoke with a certain diffidence, and Mrs. Acton, who straightened herself in her chair, watched him steadily while he made his confession. He paused with a gesture of deprecation.
"In one sense, it is a preposterous folly, but I am not quite sure that folly is not now and then better than wisdom," he added. "It has certainly proved to be so in my case."
"No doubt." Mrs. Acton"s tone was suggestive. "It is, however, Miss Hamilton I am most interested in."
Nasmyth spread one hand out forcibly. "I want you to understand that she is absolutely free. I have only told you because you once mentioned that you considered her a ward of yours. Nothing will be said to anybody else, and, if she should change her mind, I will not complain. In fact, I have decided that it would be most fitting for me to go away."
"I think," a.s.serted Mrs. Acton, "you have been either too generous or not quite generous enough. The trouble with men of your kind is that when for once they take the trouble to reflect, they become too cautious."
"I"m afraid I don"t quite grasp the point of that."
"You should either have said nothing, which is the course you ought to have adopted, or a little more. I fancy Violet would have been just as pleased if you had shown yourself determined to make sure of her."
Nasmyth stood silent, and Mrs. Acton, who surveyed him again with thoughtful eyes, was not surprised that he should have appealed to the girl"s imagination. The man was of a fine lean symmetry, and straight of limb. The stamp of a clean life was on him, showing itself in the brightness of his eyes and his clear bronzed skin, while he had, as Wisbech had said, the cla.s.sical Nasmyth features. These things, as Mrs. Acton admitted, counted for something, while the faint lines upon his face, and the suggestive hardness that now and then crept into it, were, she decided, likely to excite a young woman"s curiosity.
"Well," she said, "I feel myself considerably to blame, and I may admit that I had at first intended to make my husband get rid of you.
I really don"t know why I didn"t. You can make what you like of that."
Nasmyth bowed with a deferential smile, and she laughed.
"Still," she said, "you must go away. Violet must be free to change her mind, and, after all, it"s consoling to reflect that she has not seen so very much of you yet. In one way, it would please me if she did. It would free me of a rather heavy responsibility."
She stopped a moment, and looked at him with softening eyes. "Go and run the water out of that valley, or do anything else that will make a mark," she advised.
Nasmyth"s face was set as he replied: "If the thing is in any way possible, it shall be done. I think I will go into Victoria again to-day."
He turned away and left her, and it was an hour later when she came upon Violet sitting alone in a shady walk beneath the pines. She looked at the girl severely.