More About Peggy | Page 7

What on earth can it matter whether there are ten varieties of beetles or ten thousand? Rob is just the sort of hard-headed, determined fellow who could have made himself felt in whatever role he had taken up, and it seems hard luck that he should have chosen one so extremely dull and unremunerative." Hector leant his head against the wall with an air of patronising disgust, for his own profession being one of avowed readiness to kill as many as possible of his fellow-creatures, he felt a natural impatience with a man who trifled away his time in the study of animal nature. He sighed, and turned to his companion in an appeal for sympathy. "Hard lines, isn't it, when a fellow has society practically at his feet, that he should run off the lines like that?"
"De-plorable!" said Peggy firmly, and her expression matched the word. She shook her head and gazed solemnly into space, as if overpowered by the littleness of the reflection. "Poor Rob--he is incorrigible! I suppose, then, he doesn't care a bit for dinners, or dances, or standing against a wall at a reception, or riding in a string in the Park, but prefers to pore over his microscope, and roam over the country, poking about for specimens in the ditches and hedgerows?"
"Exactly. The mater can hardly induce him to go out, and he is never so happy as when he can get on a flannel shirt and transform himself into a tramp. You remember Rob's appearance in his school-days? He is almost as disreputable to-day, with his hair hanging in that straight heavy lock over his forehead, and his shoulders bowed by poring over that everlasting microscope."
A light passed swiftly across Peggy's face, and her eyes sparkled. One of the most trying features of a long absence from home is that the face which one most longs to remember has a way of growing dim, and elusively refusing to be recalled. In those hot Indian days, Peggy had often seated herself in her mental picture gallery, and summoned one friend after another before her: the vicar, with his kindly smiles; Mrs Asplin, with the loving eyes, and the tired flush on the dear, thin cheeks; Esther, with her long, solemn visage; Mellicent, plump and rosy; Rex, with his handsome features and budding moustache; Oswald, immaculately blond--they could all be called up at will, and would remain contentedly in their frames until such times as she chose to dismiss them; but Rob's face refused to be recalled in the same easy fashion. Now and again, from out the gloom, a pair of stormy eyes would flash upon her, or she would catch her breath as a stooping figure seemed to rise suddenly beside the palm-trees; but Rob, as a whole, had refused to be recalled, until at his brother's words his image had appeared before her in so vivid and characteristic a guise that it seemed almost as if Rob himself stood by her side. She drew a long breath, and chimed in with an eager--
"Yes, yes! And his great long arms waving about--I never knew any one with such long arms as Rob. And a pair of thick, nailed boots, with all four tabs sticking out, and a tie slipping round to the back of his neck. It's exactly like him. I can see him now!"
Hector Darcy shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't, please! It's not a pleasant prospect. I try to let distance lend enchantment to the view, for it's bad enough having to go about with him when I am at home. The fellow would not be bad-looking, if he took a little care of himself; but he is absolutely regardless of appearances."
"He must have an idea that there are other things of more importance. He was always a ridiculous boy!" murmured Miss Saville sweetly. The major glanced at her with a suspicious eye, once more disturbed by the suspicion that she was being sarcastic at his expense, but Peggy was gazing dreamily through the opposite windows, her delicately cut profile thrown into relief against the dark wood of the background. She looked so young, so fragile and innocent, that it seemed quite criminal to have harboured such a suspicion. He was convinced that she was far too sweet and unassuming a girl to laugh at such a superior person as Major Hector Darcy.
CHAPTER THREE.
A fortnight later the passengers on board the steamer were congratulating themselves on having accomplished half their journey, and being within ten days' sail of England. The waters of the Mediterranean surrounded them, clear and blue as the sky overhead, a healthful breeze supplanted the calm, and the spirits of the travellers rose ever higher and higher. Homeward bound is a very different thing from outward bound, and every soul on