He opened the door for her, but she stopped on the threshold. A young woman was waiting in the hall.
"Mrs Brown has sent her girl to escort me," she said, "so we"ll have to"--she corrected herself--"we must say good-night now. Is it good-bye, or shall I see you in the morning?"
His face had become very long again.
"I"m very much afraid not. I"ve got to report myself with the lark.
Good-bye."
The front door closed behind her, and Commander Blacklock strode back to the fire and gazed at it for some moments.
"Well," he said to himself, "I suppose, looking at things as they ought to be looked at, Mrs Brown"s girl has saved me from making a d.a.m.ned fool of myself! Now to work: that"s my proper stunt."
He threw some sheets of foolscap on the table, took out his pen, and sat down to his work. For about five minutes he stared at the foolscap, but the pen never made a movement. Then abruptly he jumped up and exclaimed--
"Dash it, I must!"
s.n.a.t.c.hing up an envelope, he thrust it in his pocket, and a moment later was out of the house.
Miss Holland and her escort were about fifty yards from Mrs Brown"s house when the girl started and looked back.
"There"s some one crying on you!" she exclaimed.
Eileen stopped and peered back into the night. It had clouded over and was very dark. Very vaguely something seemed to loom up in the path behind them.
"Miss Holland!" cried a voice.
"It"s the minister!" said the girl.
"The--who?" exclaimed Eileen; and added hastily, "Oh yes, I know who you mean."
A tall figure disengaged itself from the surrounding night.
"Sorry to trouble you," said the voice in curiously quick and jerky accents, "but I"ve got a note I want this girl to deliver immediately."
He handed her an envelope.
"Hand that in at the first farm on the other side of the Manse," he commanded, pointing backwards into the darkness. "I"ll escort Miss Holland."
"Which hoose----" began the girl.
"The first you come to!" said the Commander peremptorily. "Quick as you can!"
Then he looked at Eileen, and for a moment said nothing.
"What"s the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Has anything gone wrong?"
"Yes," he said with a half laugh, "I have. I even forgot to lick down that envelope. How the deuce I"m to explain an empty, unaddressed, unfastened envelope the Lord only knows!" His manner suddenly changed and he asked abruptly, "Are you in a desperate hurry to get in? I"ve something to say to you."
He paused and looked at her, but she said not a word in reply, not even to inquire what it was. A little jerkily he proceeded--
"I"m probably making just as great a fool of myself as Belke. But I couldn"t let you go without asking--well, whether I am merely making a fool of myself. If you know what I mean and think I am, well, please just tell me you can manage to see yourself safely home--I know it"s only about fifty yards--and I"ll go and get that wretched envelope back from the girl and tell her another lie."
"Why should I think you are making a fool of yourself?" she asked in a voice that was very quiet, but not quite as even as she meant.
"Let"s turn back a little way," he suggested quickly.
She said nothing, but she turned.
"Take my arm, won"t you," he suggested.
In the bitterness of his heart he was conscious that he had rapped out this proposal in his sharpest quarter-deck manner. And he had meant to speak so gently! Yet she took his arm, a little timidly it is true, but no wonder, thought he. For a few moments they walked in silence, falling slower and slower with each step; and then they stopped. At that, speech seemed to be jerked out of him at last.
"I wonder if it"s conceivable that you"d ever look upon me as anything but a calculating machine?" he inquired.
"I never thought of you in the least as that!" she exclaimed.
The gallant Commander evidently regarded this as a charitable exaggeration. He shook his head.
"You must sometimes. I know I must have seemed that sort of person."
"Not to me," she said.
He seemed encouraged, but still a little incredulous.
"Then did you ever really think of me as a human being--as a--as a--"
he hesitated painfully--"as a friend?"
"Yes," she said, "of course I did--always as a friend."
"Could you possibly--conceivably--think of me as"--he hesitated, and then blurted out--"as, dash it all, head over ears in love with you?"
And then suddenly the Commander realised that he had not made a fool of himself after all.
The empty envelope was duly delivered, but no explanation was required.
Mrs Brown"s girl supplied all the information necessary.
"Of course I knew fine what he was after," said she.