Violet Jacob > Flemington

86
FLEMINGTON
stood the delicacy of his companion’s feeling by
instinct. It was not only dissimulation which
bade him act thus, it was the real embarrassment
and discomfort which were creeping on him under
the eyes of the honourable soldier; all the same,
he hoped that his reluctant silence would save
him.
“You think me impertinent,” said Logie, “but
do not be afraid that I mean to pry. I know how
hard life can be and how anxious, nowadays.
There is so much loss and trouble—God knows
what may happen to this tormented country!
But trouble does not seem natural when a man is
young and light-hearted, as you are.”
Archie was collecting materials wherewith to
screen himself from his companion’s sympathy.
It would be easy to tell him some rigmarole of
early suffering, of want endured for the cause
which had lain dormant, yet living, since the un¬
successful rising of the ’15, of the devotion to it of
the parents he had scarcely known, of the bitter¬
ness of their exile, but somehow he could not
force himself to do it. He remembered those
parem, principally as vague people who were
ceaselessly playing cards, and whose quarrels
had terrified him when he was small. His real
interest in life had begun when he arrived at
Ardguys and made the acquaintance of his grand¬
mother, whose fascination he had felt, in common
with most other male creatures. He had had a
joyous youth, and he knew it. He had run the
pastures, climbed the trees, fished the Kilpie burn,