Two things, however, prevailed to keep the matter before his mind.
The first was his own sense of loss, his own experience, sore and hot
within him, of the unapproachable emptiness of death; the second,
Maggie's attitude. When a plainly sensible and controlled young woman
takes up a position of superiority, she is apt, unless the young man
in her company happens to be in love with her--and sometimes even when
he is--to provoke and irritate him into a camp of opposition. She is
still more apt to do so if her relations to him have once been in the
line of even greater tenderness.
Laurie then was not in the most favorable of moods to receive the
dicta of the Vicar.
They were announced to him immediately after Mrs. Baxter had received
from Maggie's hands her first cup of tea.
"Mr. Rymer tells me it's all nonsense," she said.
Laurie looked up.
"What?" he said.
"Mr. Rymer tells me Spiritualism is all nonsense. He told me about
someone called Eglingham, who kept a beard in his portmanteau."
"Eglinton, I think, auntie," put in Maggie.
"I daresay, my dear. Anyhow, it's all the same. I felt sure it must be
so." Laurie took a bun, with a thoughtful air.
Pages:
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54