liked Sheila Melrose, they had a good deal in common.  But curiously enough it was that very fact that made him strangely reluctant to meet her now.  In some inexplicable fashion, he found her simple directness disconcerting.  Toby’s words stuck obstinately in his mind, refusing to be dislodged.  “She likes you well enough not to want you to marry me.”  He realized beyond question that those words had not been without some significance.  It might be just instinct with her, as Toby had declared, but that Sheila regarded his engagement as a mistake he was fairly convinced.  That she herself had any feeling for him beyond that of friendship he did not for a moment imagine.  Bunny had no vanity in that direction.  There was too much of the boy, too much of the frank comrade, in his disposition for that.  They were pals, and the idea of anything deeper than palship on either side had never seriously crossed his mind.  He was honest in all his ways, and his love for Toby—­that wild and wonderful flower of first love—­filled all his conscious thoughts to the exclusion of aught beside.  The odd, sweet beauty of her had him in thrall.  She was so totally different from everyone else he had ever encountered.  He felt the lure of her more and more with every meeting, the wonder and the charm.

But Sheila did not want him to marry her, and a very natural feeling of irritation against her possessed him in consequence.  Doubtless Sheila had a perfect right to her opinions, but she might keep them to herself.  Between Saltash’s headlong resolve to help and Sheila’s veiled desire to hinder, he felt that his course was becoming too complicated, as if in spite of his utmost efforts to guide his own craft there were contrary currents at work that he was powerless to avoid.

He had an urgent desire for Toby that afternoon, and he was inclined somewhat unreasonably to resent her absence.  But when at length the hoot of the General’s car warned him of his visitors’ advent as they turned in at the gate, he was suddenly conscious of a feeling of relief that he was alone.  Toby was not at her ease with them.  She fancied they disapproved of her, and whether the fancy were justified or not he was glad that she was not there to meet them.  He determined to get the business over as quickly as possible.

Sheila in her dainty summer attire was looking even prettier than usual, and almost against his will Bunny noted the fact.  Against his will also, his barely-acknowledged feeling of resentment vanished before he had been five minutes in her company.  Sheila’s charms went beyond mere prettiness.  She had the tact and ready ease of manner which experience of the world alone can impart.  She was sympathetic and quick of understanding.  Without flattering, she possessed the happy knack of setting those about her at their ease.  It was very rarely that she was roused to indignation; perhaps only Saltash knew how deep her indignation could be.  And he was not the man to impart the knowledge to anyone else.