"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now, what would she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to see?"
I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "at this distance of time?"
"Try!" she said.
Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, I searched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate child of my remembrance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate woman--the most absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt!
The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross dropped out of it instantly, expelled by the substantial conclusion which the contrast implied. Alike ignorant of the aftergrowth of health, strength, and beauty which time and circumstances had developed in the Mary of my youthful days, we had alike completely and unconsciously misled one another. Once more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed it by a hair-breadth!
"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross, "to your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of what a really attractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt any sorrow for the loss of that other person (I detest buxom women!) passes my understanding. I can't tell you how interested I am in Mary! I want to know more about her. Where is that pretty present of needle-work which the poor little thing embroidered for you so industriously? Do let me see the green flag!"
She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I felt a little confused as I answered her.
"I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my house in Perthshire."
"You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave her keepsake lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed forgotten Mary! A woman, in your place, would have parted with her life rather than part with the one memorial left of the time when she first loved!"
She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with such agitation, I might almost say--that she quite startled me.
"Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost."
"I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose the green flag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that, if my belief is right."
"What do you believe?"
"You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading of your face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man."
"Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as frankly as usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of Mary?"