When Jess came in Ralph had risen instinctively. He shook hands heartily with her. As she looked up at him, she said: "Do you remember me?"
Ralph replied with an eager frankness, all the more marked that he had expected Winsome instead of Jess Kissock: "Indeed, how could I forget, when you helped me to carry my books that night? I am glad to find you here. I had no idea that you lived here."
Which was indeed true, for he had not yet been able to grasp the idea that any but Winsome lived at Craig Ronald.
Jess Kissock, who knew that not many moments were hers before Meg might come in, replied: "I am here to help with the house. Meg Kissock is my sister." She looked to see if there was anything in Ralph's eyes she could resent; but a son of the Marrow kirk had not been trained to respect of persons.
"I am sure you will help very much," he said, politely.
"I'm not as strong as my sister, you see, so that I'm generally in the house," said Jess, who was carrying two dishes of flowers at once across the room. At Ralph's feet one of them overset, and poured all its wealth of blue and white and splashed crimson over the floor.
Jess stooped to lift them, crying shame on her own awkwardness. Ralph kindly assisted her. As they stooped to gather them together, Jess put forward all her attractions. Her lithe grace never showed to more advantage. Yet, for all the impression she made on Ralph, she might as well have wasted her sweetness on Jock Gordon--indeed, better so, for Jock recognized in her something strangely kin to his own wayward spirit.
When the flowers were all gathered and put back: "Now you shall have one for helping," said Jess, as she had once seen a lady in England do, and she selected a dark-red, velvety damask rose from the wealth which she had cut and brought out of the garden. Standing on tiptoe, she could scarcely reach his button-hole.
"Bend down," she said. Obediently Ralph bent, good-humouredly patient, to please this girl who had done him a good turn on that day which now seemed so far away--the day that had brought Craig Ronald and Winsome into his life.
But in spite of his stooping, Jess had some difficulty in pinning in the rose, and in order to steady herself on tiptoe, she reached up and laid a staying hand on his shoulder. As he bent down, his face just touched the crisp fringes of her dark hair, which seemed a strange thing to him.