her own room to be alone, and sat in the sun by the open window, with her
head resting on the back of her chair, looking up at the sky; and sighed,
and smiled, and clasped her hands to her breast, and revelled in
sensations.

Major Colquhoun had been staying with a neighbouring county gentleman, but
she found when she met him again at afternoon tea that her father had
persuaded him to come to Fraylingay for some shooting. He was to go back
that night, and return to them the following Tuesday. Evadne heard of the
arrangement in silence, and unsurprised. Had he gone and _not_
returned, she would have wondered; but this sudden admission of a stranger
to the family circle, although unusual, was not unprecedented at
Fraylingay, where, after it was certain that you knew the right people,
pleasant manners were the only passport necessary to secure a footing of
easy intimacy; and, besides, it was inevitable--that the sign might be
fulfilled. So Evadne folded her hands as it were, and calmly awaited the
course of events, not doubting for a moment that she knew exactly what
that course was to be.

She did not actually _see_ much of Major Colquhoun in the days that
followed, although, when he was not out shooting, he was always beside her;
but such timid glances as she stole satisfied her. And she heard her
mother say what a fine-looking man he was, and her father emphatically
pronounced him to be "a very good fellow." He was Irish by his mother's
side, Scotch by his father's, but much more Irish than Scotch by
predilection, and it was his mother tongue he spoke, exaggerating the
accent slightly to heighten the effect of a tender speech or a good story.
With the latter he kept Mr. Frayling well entertained, and Evadne he plied
with the former on every possible occasion.