Listening Valley by D. E. Stevenson

calling me Miss Melville because he must be about Father’s age, I should think. Somehow it makes me feel more grown up and important to be called Antonia. It’s as if I were two people. When I am at home I am just Tonia and I do silly things, but when I am with Mr. Norman I am Antonia, and she is quite a sensible sort of person. We went to a concert one afternoon and another day we went to Queensferry in his car and had tea at the Hawes Inn. He has a marvelous car and drives very well—fast but carefully. Of course he is quite old, but he understands things almost as well as you do—which is rather wonderful, I think. I will tell you what he is like to look at: very tall and big with gray hair and blue eyes. He has lovely hands with long fingers. I like looking at them when he is driving the car. But all this does not really give you much idea of him. He is very distinguished looking. People look at him when he walks past and wonder who he is. Father says he is a brilliant financier. The other day Father said, “Are you going out with your friend, the brilliant financier?” It was a joke, of course. Father is quite different to me lately; he talks to me and asks questions and listens to the answers, as if I were important—if you know what I mean. He has given me fifty pounds to buy some new clothes.
    Tonia hesitated and stopped. What would Lou think when she read the letter? Would she think it queer? It was queer, really. Why does Mr. Norman bother with me, Tonia wondered.
    â€œFrank has been here several times,” continued Tonia. “He asked me to go to a dance with him and Mother wanted me to go, but Father said I was to do as I liked, so I did not go. I was rather surprised at Frank asking me because I did not think he liked me much. He rang up again this morning and asked me to go with him to the zoo, but fortunately I had arranged to go to North Berwick with Mr. Norman…”
    ***
    It was a glorious afternoon with a breeze from the east, keen and invigorating. The sea was a deep blue, the sky a lighter blue and cloudless; there was a hard line along the horizon as if it had been drawn with a ruler and a pencil. Against this line the islands stood out bold and rugged, so clear that you could see the bright green grass growing between the boulders. Mr. Norman and Tonia left the car at the harbor and walked along the East Bay toward a high escarpment of red rock. The tide was out. Small waves like snow-white frills broke upon the shore.
    â€œAre you happy, Antonia?” asked Mr. Norman.
    â€œVery happy,” she replied. “It would be funny if I were not happy, wouldn’t it? All this…” said Tonia, who had learned that she could prattle to Mr. Norman without being pulled up with a jerk and made to feel a fool. “All this is so lovely—the sea and the sky and the wind and you being so kind to me.”
    â€œYou’re kind to me,” he replied with unaccustomed gravity.
    â€œI am?”
    â€œYes, of course. You make me happy.”
    Tonia considered this. It was a new point of view. “But you could have anyone,” she said. “Anyone would like to come out in your car.”
    â€œBut only you could make me happy.”
    â€œIf you had met Lou,” said Tonia with a sigh. “Lou is so interesting and amusing, so full of life and…”
    â€œI don’t want Lou,” said Mr. Norman firmly.
    Perhaps this was just as well, thought Tonia as they picked their way over a flat reef of slippery rocks. It was nice to feel that Mr. Norman was her own friend, her very own, not just a sort of overflow from someone else. “I hope you won’t get bored with me,” said Tonia suddenly, following out her train of thought.
    â€œYou might get bored with me,” suggested her companion in a casual sort of tone.
    â€œNever,” said Tonia confidently.
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œOf course I’m