All this while, however, there was a more poisonous ferment at work between the two lads, which came late indeed to the surface, but had modified and magnified their dissensions from the first.To an idle, shallow, easy-going customer like Frank, the smell of a mystery was attractive.It gave his mind something to play with, like a new toy to a child; and it took him on the weak side, for like many young men coming to the Bar, and before they had been tried and found wanting, he flattered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and penetration.
They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those days, but there was a good deal said of Talleyrand.And if you could have caught Frank off his guard, he would have confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any one, it was the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord.It was on the occasion of Archie's first absence that this interest took root.It was vastly deepened when Kirstie resented his curiosity at breakfast, and that same afternoon there occurred another scene which clinched the business.He was fishing Swingleburn, Archie accompanying him, when the latter looked at his watch.
"Well, good-bye," said he."I have something to do.See you at dinner.""Don't be in such a hurry," cries Frank."Hold on till I get my rod up.
I'll go with you; I'm sick of flogging this ditch."And he began to reel up his line.
Archie stood speechless.He took a long while to recover his wits under this direct attack; but by the time he was ready with his answer, and the angle was almost packed up, he had become completely Weir, and the hanging face gloomed on his young shoulders.He spoke with a laboured composure, a laboured kindness even; but a child could see that his mind was made up.
"I beg your pardon, Innes; I don't want to be disagreeable, but let us understand one another from the beginning.When I want your company, I'll let you know.""O!" cries Frank, "you don't want my company, don't you?""Apparently not just now," replied Archie."I even indicated to you when I did, if you'll remember - and that was at dinner.If we two fellows are to live together pleasantly - and I see no reason why we should not - it can only be by respecting each other's privacy.If we begin intruding - ""O, come! I'll take this at no man's hands.Is this the way you treat a guest and an old friend?" cried Innes.
"Just go home and think over what I said by yourself," continued Archie, "whether it's reasonable, or whether it's really offensive or not; and let's meet at dinner as though nothing had happened, I'll put it this way, if you like - that I know my own character, that I'm looking forward (with great pleasure, I assure you) to a long visit from you, and that I'm taking precautions at the first.I see the thing that we -that I, if you like - might fall out upon, and I step in and OBSTOPRINCIPIIS.I wager you five pounds you'll end by seeing that I mean friendliness, and I assure you, Francie, I do," he added, relenting.
Bursting with anger, but incapable of speech, Innes shouldered his rod, made a gesture of farewell, and strode off down the burn-side.Archie watched him go without moving.He was sorry, but quite unashamed.He hated to be inhospitable, but in one thing he was his father's son.He had a strong sense that his house was his own and no man else's; and to lie at a guest's mercy was what he refused.He hated to seem harsh.
But that was Frank's lookout.If Frank had been commonly discreet, he would have been decently courteous.And there was another consideration.The secret he was protecting was not his own merely; it was hers: it belonged to that inexpressible she who was fast taking possession of his soul, and whom he would soon have defended at the cost of burning cities.By the time he had watched Frank as far as the Swingleburn-foot, appearing and disappearing in the tarnished heather, still stalking at a fierce gait but already dwindled in the distance into less than the smallness of Lilliput, he could afford to smile at the occurrence.Either Frank would go, and that would be a relief - or he would continue to stay, and his host must continue to endure him.
And Archie was now free - by devious paths, behind hillocks and in the hollow of burns - to make for the trysting-place where Kirstie, cried about by the curlew and the plover, waited and burned for his coming by the Covenanter's stone.
Innes went off down-hill in a passion of resentment, easy to be understood, but which yielded progressively to the needs of his situation.He cursed Archie for a cold-hearted, unfriendly, rude, rude dog; and himself still more passionately for a fool in having come to Hermiston when he might have sought refuge in almost any other house in Scotland.But the step once taken, was practically irretrievable.He had no more ready money to go anywhere else; he would have to borrow from Archie the next club-night; and ill as he thought of his host's manners, he was sure of his practical generosity.Frank's resemblance to Talleyrand strikes me as imaginary; but at least not Talleyrand himself could have more obediently taken his lesson from the facts.He met Archie at dinner without resentment, almost with cordiality.You must take your friends as you find them, he would have said.Archie couldn't help being his father's son, or his grandfather's, the hypothetical weaver's, grandson.The son of a hunks, he was still a hunks at heart, incapable of true generosity and consideration; but he had other qualities with which Frank could divert himself in the meanwhile, and to enjoy which it was necessary that Frank should keep his temper.