The next morning Paul, smoking his usual cigar of proprietorship about the stables and dog kennels, saw Mrs. Vane coming with a pretty little air of hesitation along one of the shrubbery paths.

"Ben trovato! Who would have thought of finding you here?" she cried gaily, just as if she had not been watching to catch him from her window for the last ten minutes. "I have missed my way to the Lodge; show it to me, please."

He looked into her clever, charming face, understanding perfectly what she was at, and yet the finesse did not irritate him as it would have done in another woman. Besides, in this instance, she was just a little too clever, as he meant to prove to her.

"By all means," he replied coolly; "I was just going there myself to apologise to Mrs. Cameron for my sister's negligence, but really the weather has been so bad."

Mrs. Vane shot an amused glance at her tall companion. So Paul meant to ride the high horse, that poorest of all defences against a quick wit; like that of lance against bayonet, dignified and circumambient, but quite ineffectual.

"But I am not going to see Mrs. Cameron," she retorted frankly; "I am going to see if Miss Carmichael will be kind and play Bach to me; it is a long time since I heard him played so well. You used to be fond of him, too, in the old days, Paul. Don't you remember how you used to lie on the sofa after that fever and declare that a wife's first duty was to be able to play to her husband? But girls--at least, most girls--don't care to play nowadays unless they are professionals. And if they are professionals they don't care to be wives--not even to a Highland laird."

"In regard to the present musician," replied Paul, beginning to dismount, "I am sure no such scheme of self-sacrifice ever entered her head. Miss Carmichael is charming, I admit; but she has a mission in life, and it is not to regulate me. That, I think, is a fair and full statement of the truth, except that before I came here she used to practise occasionally on the piano at the Big House, and, I presume, left her music there by mistake."

Mrs. Vane stopped in an attitude of tragic despair. "There! I have gone and forgotten it after all, and that was my excuse for going so soon. You see, your sister said it had better be taken back at once, as none of the girls in the house played, and so it wouldn't be wanted."

Paul bit his lip at the double thrust. "Perhaps it is as well you have forgotten it," he said angrily; "Miss Carmichael will, no doubt, be able to use it herself some day soon."

"That will be delightful," replied Mrs. Vane, with a sudden cessation of attack.

Five minutes after, rather to his own surprise, Paul Macleod found himself talking to Marjory as he might have talked to any other girl of his acquaintance, and wondering how he could have been such a fool as to imagine himself to be in love with her. After all, he told himself, his first theory had been right, and the ridiculously unconventional familiarity of the past idyll was mainly responsible for the mawkish sentimentality which had attacked him of late, but which, thank heaven! was now over. How could it be otherwise with a girl like Marjory--a perfect iceberg of primness and propriety?

His sense of security, joined to a certain unconfessed resentment at her apparent indifference as to whether he came or not, drove him into more effusive apologies on his sister's behalf than he would otherwise have made, and brought down on him a remark from Mrs. Cameron that "Indeed and in truth Marjory would no be going to make strangers of the laird and his sister, and he so kind, in and out o' the house for weeks, just like a bairn of her own." Whereat Mrs. Vane, stifling a desire to laugh at Paul's evident confusion, came to the rescue with a well-timed diversion about some of the household troubles which had been occupying Lady George.

'"Deed!" said Mrs. Cameron, after listening sympathetically, "I can well believe it! But the warld will come to an end soon, that's one comfort. You see, it'll just no be possible' for Providence to put up wi' it much longer, for it's a' I can do to have patience wi' my small corner of the vineyard, an' that, praise be, is no sae bad as it might be, seeing that I can hand my ain wi' most folk."

"But Providence can do that also, surely, Mrs. Cameron?" laughed Paul.

"Maybe, an' maybe not. I grant ye it comes quits at the hinder end, what wi' worms that die not, an' fires that be not quenched. But it's a weary long time to blow at the flames o' wrath, and wadna suit me that's aye for havin' it out and done wi'. Lord sakes! life wad no be worth havin' if I had to write down a' the servant lassies cantrip's in a big bookie against term day, an' keep my tongue on them meanwhiles. And it is little the hussies would care if I did, for they wad ken find I'd just forgive them when the day of reckoning came, an' forgiveness just beats all for spoiling folk."

"It's lucky for some of us," put in Mrs. Vane, with a laugh, "that Providence isn't of your way of thinking."

"'Deed, I am not as sure of that neither. Folk would think twice o' breaking the law if it waant for the grips they have on mercy. It is just, you see, in the nature o' man to stand by his luck if the odds are even; but if he knows he'll get paicks he will just keep the body in subjection. It is the same in all things. Just look at the difference in the manners o' folks nowadays! Not half so good as in the old times when they had to stand sponsor for each word with a pistol shot. Why, I mind, Gleneira, your grandfather calling out Glenrannooh for passing him on the kirk steps without a reverence!"

"I didn't know you were so bloodthirsty," remarked Paul; "and though I quite agree with you, theoretically, I must be careful, since you evidently don't believe in apologies."

"Apologies," echoed Mrs. Cameron, scornfully. "No! no! Gleneira. They're fine healin' balm to the sinner, but I'll have none coming between me and my rights. There was James Gillespie telling little Sandy McColl to go an' apologise to wee Peter Rankin for pulling his hair, instead o' just giving the laddie a good skelping, and daring him to do it again. So the bairns just bided their time and had it out in a natural way, and you never saw such sichts they were. I'm no saying folk should not be repentant o' their sins, but they should just take the consequences along wi' the forgiveness."

"Or follow my example and take neither," suggested the laird.

Mrs. Cameron looked at him sharply, then shook her head. "Havers! that is what no mortal man can do, least of all, you, Gleneira, with your soft heart."

"Soft heart!" echoed Paul, derisively. "It is only that towards you, Mrs. Cameron; to the world in general it is hard as adamant. Don't you agree with me, Miss Carmichael?"

"Hard enough to ensure your peace of mind, I hope," she replied quietly.

Violet Vane's bright eyes were on them both, and she gave an odd little laugh. "I wonder if it is! I should like to vivisect you and find out, Captain Macleod; only the process of seeing the 'wheels go wound,' as Toddie says in 'Helen's Babies,' might end in stopping them altogether. Perhaps it would be as well--for other people's hearts."

"The heart is no easily damaged, anyway," put in Mrs. Cameron, with the air of one who knows. "Folks like to think it is, but it is maistly the stomach that goes wrang. I've seen a heap o' broken hearts in my time cured wi' camomile tea; it's just grand for the digestion."

"I shall order Peter Macpherson to lay down a large bed at once," began Paul, gravely.

"For the sake of your victims, I suppose," interrupted Mrs. Vane. "Commend me to Captain Macleod, Mrs. Cameron, for shameless conceit."

"Pardon me," put in Paul, "for my own." He gave a glance at Marjory, who was standing apart with a little fine smile of contempt on her face, but she took no notice of him. To tell truth she scarcely knew why she felt scornful, and, when they had gone, she sate down in defiance of her promise to her books again, telling herself that Paul by himself, willing to fall in with her life, was quite a different being from Paul expecting her to be friends with his friends--people whose dresses fitted them like a glove, and who looked charming. Yes, that was the right word!--charming from the sole of their feet to the crown of their heads. As if she had anything in common with such people!--or, for the matter of that, with Paul, himself--she, whose fate it was to work, and who liked that fate? Yet almost before Captain Macleod and his companion had reached home after the dÉtour he begged for round the garden, Marjory had thrown down her book in a temper at her own stupidity, run upstairs for her hat, and was off for a wild, solitary scramble over the hills.

Paul and his companion, meanwhile, strolling idly through the vineries and hothouses, she with dainty dress, draped gingerly from fear of stain, and vivid, whimsical face, diving like a honey-sucker at the perfumed flowers, were enjoying themselves thoroughly in their own way; so that the former, coming out at last from an atmosphere of stephanotis and tropical heat to face the bright, sharp air of a Highland glen, gave a little shiver, and told himself inconsequently that Violet was the most charming companion in the world. And so she was, being blessed with the infallible range-finder called tact; for half the misunderstandings of life come from people either blazing away at a bird that is out of shot, or blowing one to pieces,--that is to say, from a failure to appreciate distance and the fact that, though our best friend may be, so to speak, well within range over night, that is no reason why we should reach him with the same sight the next morning. In most of us feeling, tastes, dislikes, fluctuate with every hour; nay, more, the individual, as a whole, hovers like the needle of a barometer on either side of change, so that the more sensitive of us are conscious of the difference in ourselves at different times in the day, and it becomes possible for us to be certain that we might do that at ten o'clock at night which we could not do at ten o'clock in the day. Yet, despite this undoubted fact, most of us resent the change of position in regard to our outlook in life which it entails, the change of key which strict harmony requires. Mrs. Vane, however, was not one of the many, and, as a rule, when she played a dissonant note she did it out of malice aforethought; as she did now when, looking back at the garden with its low espaliers and broad walks bordered by old-fashioned flowers, she paused to say sweetly, "It is a charming place, Paul; you ought to be very happy here with her."

He frowned as he held the door open for his companion to pass through; but he was beginning to remember that she used the bayonet deftly, and came to close quarters at once.

"The personal pronoun, third person singular, feminine gender, accusative case, is rather too vague to interest me, I'm afraid. Can't you suggest something more concrete?"

She laughed as she pointed gaily to an upper path which, after a time, would merge into theirs. "See! yonder are the young ladies, going home, as we should be also, since you will be wanted. Don't let me keep you, please. They will walk faster than I do, and I am used to being left behind to fend for myself."

"Not by me," he replied, with a certain self-complacency, "and you never will be, I trust. I should be a brute indeed were I to forget all your kindness."

"Dieu mercie," she flashed out, in sudden, uncontrollable resentment, "how I hate gratitude! It takes half the flavour out of life. I often think I should have been happier if I had not been so kind to people."

"I have no doubt you made them much happier, if that is any consolation to you."

"Not in the slightest." Then as suddenly her irritation passed, and she looked up at him with a whimsical smile. "Paul," she said, "I believe Miss Carmichael used to set you copies--or is it Miss Woodward? anyhow, you are detestably didactic to-day; so it is just as well the others are joining us, or you would be telling me that 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'"

"The process is pleasant, anyhow," he replied, in one of those moments of recognition which come to us, even with familiar friends, as some quality or charm strikes us afresh; "and you couldn't corrupt my good temper, for you always put me into one, somehow. I believe you use arts and spells."

She shrugged her shoulders gaily. "Burn me as a witch, by all means! You can afford it since the next fairly good-looking woman you meet will have exactly the same consolatory power. As you said, the personal pronoun, feminine gender, third person singular, has a wide application for Paul Macleod. Ah! Miss Woodward, what lovely ferns! We have just been going round the houses, and there is a hibiscus out which you ought to see. It put me in mind of India; you sent the seed home from our garden, I think, didn't you, Captain Macleod? We might go back and look at it now, and return by the beach, mightn't we? It is no longer, and far prettier."

The result of which easy, deft manipulation of a chance meeting being that, ere the memory of his pleasant stroll with her had passed from Paul's somewhat vagrant mind, he was performing the same pilgrimage again under different guidance. Now, Alice Woodward was always counted a most agreeable girl in her world, and Paul, as in duty bound, laid himself out to please; yet all the time they were chatting amicably about Shakespeare and the musical glasses he was conscious of an effort, and of a desire to know what the other girls who were lagging behind with Violet could be laughing at so gaily.

"That is the hibiscus," he said, stopping abruptly before the flower which, with its creamy petals and crimson heart, had ten minutes before carried him back to another hemisphere, another life--a pleasant, younger life, with more possibilities of passion in it than the present one.

"It is very pretty," replied Alice, blandly, rather absently. "The colours are lovely. I really think colours improve every year. Do you remember at Constantinople, Captain Macleod, everyone agreed that there was a decided advance on Venice? In that ballet before the procession, you know, they really were exquisite."

Paul assented cheerfully, even though he felt such memories were as water after wine to Mrs. Vane's appeal to the past. "It used to grow by the well. Ah, Paul! how young you were on those days, and how you used to enjoy life."

That was true; and yet a well-cooked dinner and roomy stalls at a first-class spectacle brought solid comfort more suitable to the coming years; besides, Violet had always had the knack of taking the colour out of other women, and while adapting herself more readily to her surroundings than most, never lost a peculiar piquant charm of her own which did not clash with her environment. Yet, as they strolled home by the beach, it occurred to him that they were all, himself included, out of touch with the glorious world of sea and sky and mountain in which they stood. And Mrs. Vane agreed, or, at any rate, was quick enough to read his thought, for as the girls trooped up the stairs finishing a discussion on the relative merits of two balls, she lingered in the hall to say quizzically:

"Is her name Virginia, Paul? and do you fancy a desert island? That comes of having so much of the natural Adam left in you."

"Oh, dear me! what has Blasius been doing now?" asked Lady George, plaintively, overhearing the last words as she came out of the morning room. At the same moment, as if in answer, the sturdy stump intermingled with bumps which usually marked Blazes' rapid descent from the nursery regions, was heard as a sort of running accompaniment to a steady stream of violent objurgations delivered with immense zest, in his round, full voice: "Haud up! Ger' out, ye brute! Stiddy, yer deevil! Stiddy yer!"

"Nurse!" cried poor Blanche, aghast, to the stately figure, descending behind the stumbling, bumping, yet swift offender, "what does this mean? Where has Master Blasius picked up----"

"Oh! if it comes to picking up, milady, that's easy sayin'. Master Blazes told me last night 'is bath was 'devilish 'ot,' and when I spoke to him serious told me it was the Capting."

"Really, Paul, I think you might be more careful," began his sister, aggrievedly, when he interrupted her.

"I'm not responsible for that, anyhow! What on earth is he up to now?" For Blasius, having reached the bottom of the stairs, had, so to speak, fallen tooth and nail on the sheepskin rug, which he was bestriding with vehement kicks and upbraidings, as he clutched on to the wool wildly--

"Ger' up, ye deevil! Haud still, ye dommed brute!"

"It is through Mary's young man as she's took up with bein' a shepherd, milady," said nurse, swooping down on the child. "An' through her never 'aving seen sheep shore, that's what it is."

Paul burst into a guffaw of laughter. "Old Angus! I swear to you, Violet, it's the living image of old Angus. What a mimic the child is!"

"Do be quiet, Paul!" said his sister, hastily. "How can I---- Nurse, tell Mary that I am much displeased, and that if I hear of her watching the shepherd again----"

"I 'ave told her, milady," retorted the nurse, with as much dignity as kicks and strugglings left to her, "and there an't no fear. Master Blazes'll forget it sharp enough when he don't 'ear it. It is the things 'as he do 'ear, constant"--a backward glance at Paul from the turn of the stair emphasised the reproach.

"It is really very distressing," mourned Lady George, turning in grave regret to Mrs. Vane, and then, seeing unqualified amusement in that lady's face, yielding a little to her own sense of humour. "But he really did it splendidly, though where the child gets the talent from, I don't know. But fancy, Paul, if Mrs. Woodward had been here! I should have died of shame, for she spent half an hour yesterday in lecturing me. 'Dear Lady George,' she said, 'you mean well, and of course the younger generation are always right.' Now, what are you all laughing at?"

"At you and your son, my dear," replied Paul. "That was Mrs. Woodward to the life! So cheer up, Blanche. He will make his fortune on the stage--or as a sheep farmer." And so full of smiles over the recollection of the small sturdy figure struggling with the woolly mat, he went off, feeling that in one way or another the morning had passed pleasantly enough. Rationally also, without any attempt at Arcadia. That danger was over, and incidentally he owed Mrs. Vane another debt of gratitude for having driven him into calling at the Lodge, and so discovering that Marjory, seen in ordinary society, was not nearly so distracting a person as she had been when earth, and air, and water had seemed to conspire in suggesting a new world of dreams, where love was something very different to what it was in real life.

But Paul Macleod was not the only one of the party who felt satisfied with the morning's work. Mrs. Vane, as she idled away an hour or two in her room--one of her country-house maxims being that the less people saw of you between meals the better--told herself that there was time yet to stave off the immediate danger with Alice Woodward. That was the one thing to be attained somehow--how, she did not care. Paul had been flirting with Marjory, of course. Deny what he would, the look she had surprised on his face on the Sunday did not come there for nothing; besides, the girl herself had been too cold, too distant, for absolute indifference. That farce of everything being over for ever was easily played in absence, but was apt to break down at a renewal of intimacy. It would be well to try if it would, at any rate; and under any circumstances Paul was not likely to settle matters with Alice until the party was on the eve of breaking up; since it was always more convenient in these matters to have a way of escape if you were refused.

Mrs. Woodward was of the same opinion, and said so to her husband when, on laying his night-capped head on the conjugal pillow that evening, he began to sound her as to the prospects of escape from the dilatory posts, which, to tell truth, afforded him daily occupation. For on the stroke of eleven he could fuss round, watch in hand, counting the minutes of delay, and, after Donald had come and gone, there was always that letter to the Times, exposing the iniquity of whiskey bottles and pounds of tea in Her Majesty's mail bag, to be composed against Lord George's return from the hill to the smoking-room, when it had to be read aloud, amended, discussed, and finally set aside till the next day. Then Donald would be later than ever, and Mr. Woodward, tempted by the thought of detailing still more horrible delinquencies, would withhold his letter for further amendment.

"I suppose it is all right, mamma," he began cautiously. "At least, I noticed that the young people seemed to be--er--getting on to-day."

"Quite right," yawned the partner of his joys and sorrows. "How lucky it was that Jack had to go to Riga about that tallow business."

Even in the dark, with his head in night-cap, Mr. Woodward's paternal dignity bristled.

"Lucky! You speak, my dear, as if he had had claims, and I deny----"

"You can deny what you please, Mr. Woodward. I think it was lucky, for now he need know nothing of the engagement till he returns."

"Perhaps. My dear, by the way, have you any idea when the engagement is likely to--ahem--er--come off?"

Mrs. Woodward yawned once, twice. This was a detail scarcely sufficient to warrant her being kept awake. "I can't say--not till we are going to leave, I should think. That sort of thing breaks up a party dreadfully. Why?"

Mr. Woodward sighed. "Only the posts really are so irregular. As I said in my letter of to-day----"

But this was too much for anyone's patience. "You can tell me to-morrow, my dear," said the wife of his bosom, firmly. "I shouldn't wonder if it were later than ever, for Lady George told me it was fair day, or fast day, or something of that sort in Oban."

Mr. Woodward gave a groan, and turned over to compose a still more scathing report of the Gleneira mail.

About the same time Blanche Temple, who, on her husband's late arrival from the smoking-room, was found by him in dressing-gown and slippers over the fire, reading a novel, and enjoying the only free time, she said, a Highland hostess could hope for, was telling her lord and master much the same tale. The young people were getting on, Paul was really behaving charmingly, and little Mrs. Vane, contrary to her expectations, seemed quite inclined to throw them together, so that the future seemed clear. And Alice Woodward, had she been awake, would doubtless have added her voice to the general satisfaction, for it was distinctly pleasant to see the other girls' evident admiration of Paul's good looks, and to hear their raptures over the beauty of Gleneira. For a few months in autumn it would certainly be pleasant to play the part Lady George was playing now, and for the rest of the year there would be Constantinople, and civilisation generally.

But the very next day at dinner something occurred to disturb one person's peace, for Paul, as Mrs. Vane used to say, was a bad landlord even to himself. His mind was not well fenced, and the gates, which should have barred vagrant thoughts from intrusion, were as often as not wide open or sadly out of repair. And this interruption was trivial, being only a remark in his sister's clear, high-pitched voice:

"Mr. Gillespie was here again about that bazaar, and I believe, Paul, he is in love with that Miss Carmichael of yours. At least, he talked of her in a way--it would be most suitable, of course, and I really think we ought to encourage it. It would give us old fogies something to amuse us, wouldn't it, Mrs. Woodward?"

"I disapprove of matchmaking on principle, Lady George," replied that lady, severely; "but this, as you say, appears very suitable indeed. She is a governess, or something of that sort of thing, I believe, and they generally make admirable wives for poor clergymen. Understand Sunday-schools, and don't expect to be taken about everywhere."

"What an admirable wife for any poor man," put in a subaltern from Paul's regiment, who had been asked down to make the sexes even; a nice, fair-haired lad, given as yet to blushing over his own successes in society. "If you will introduce me, Lady George, I might cut out the curate."

"He isn't the curate," said his hostess, smiling. "By the way, Paul, what are they in Scotland?"

"Dissenting ministers!" retorted her brother, sullenly, angry with her, and with himself; the one for inflicting, the other for feeling, this sudden pain. Blanche's face was a study in outraged dignity.

"My dear Paul!" she began, and then paused, speechless.

"He is very good-looking, I think," said the echo diligently, "and I hear----"

"What is that?" put in Lord George from afar. "Miss Carmichael and the parson! Pooh! she is far too good for that blatant young----"

"George!" exclaimed his better half, this time with authority, "pray remember that he is our clergyman--our parish clergyman."

"We are not likely to forget his pretensions to that position, Blanche, considering how often he comes here," put in Paul, at a white heat over what he told himself was an unwarrantable liberty with a young lady's name, and feeling as if he could rend the whole company; especially the unsuspecting subaltern.

"What a refreshing thing it is," came Mrs. Vane's half-jesting voice, "to find the sexes have so high an opinion of each other! Go where you will, Lady George, the news of an engagement makes nine-tenths of the men swear she is too good for him, and all the women say he is too good for her. Touching tributes; but what gender is truth?"

"Masculine, of course!" put in her next-door neighbour, who prided himself on being smart. "That dissentient tenth proves discrimination the unanimity prejudice."

"Pardon me, it may only mean that men mix their prejudices as they do their wines, while we women are consistent and prefer simplicity."

"I can hardly be expected at the present moment to say that I do," retorted her companion.

"I shall remember that against you," laughed the little lady. "Meanwhile I agree with the men. The young lady is too good for any of you; she is charming."

"Give me first introduction, please," pleaded the subaltern. "I always like people who are too good for me."

"That explains the universality of your affections, I suppose, Mr. Palmer," remarked Mrs. Vane, demurely.

"But really, Paul," said his sister, returning to the subject with injured persistency when the laugh had subsided. "I cannot see why Mr. Gillespie should not pay his pastoral visits if he chooses; besides we had to discuss the church."

"Then I trust the service won't be a repetition of the last one," replied her brother, still woefully out of temper; "I, for one, will refuse to go if it is. You agree with me, don't you, Miss Woodward?"

She smiled at him placidly. "Well! it was rather funny, wasn't it?"

"Funny!" echoed Sam Woodward. "I'll tell you what, it was the rummiest go!" and he was proceeding to detail the whole to the new arrival whom he had taken down to dinner, when Lady George, with a withering glance in his direction, proceeded in a higher key.

"The new church, I mean, Paul. We have arranged it all delightfully while you horrid men have been killing birds. Alice is making a subscription book with a Gothic window on the outside--illuminated, you know--and a little appeal on the first page. It is to have an initial letter, is it not, dear? Then by and bye, next year, perhaps, when London isn't quite empty, Mrs. Woodward has promised her house for a Highland fair--tartan things, and snoods--and--and----"

"Queighs," suggested her husband, demurely, but she scorned the interruption. "And spinning chairs."

"Spinning chairs?" echoed Mr. Woodward, who, hearing for the first time that his house was to be made use of, felt bound to show some interest in the matter.

"Yes! those things with very little seat, no back, and a lot of carving. All the stall-keepers are to be dressed out of Scott's novels and Mr. St. Clare is going to write--what was it, Mr. St. Clare?"

"A rondelet," muttered the poet, gloomily, looking up from the chocolate creams with which he was trying to make life worth living.

"Of course! a rondelet--that is the thing with very few words and a great many rhymes, isn't it? And of course you, Paul, will wear the kilt--local colour is everything."

"My dear girl," cried Paul, too aghast for ill-humour. "I haven't worn the kilt for years--pray consider----"

"The local colour of your knees," put in Lord George, brutally. "Never mind, old man, a bottle of patent bronzine, like Blanche uses for her slippers----"

"George!" cried his wife, rising with an awful dignity. "Shall we go into the drawing-room, Mrs. Woodward?"

"It was only his knees, my dear," protested the discomforted nobleman in a whisper as she swept past him. "Hang it all! if a man mayn't mention his brother-in-law's knees or his wife's slippers."

But she was out of hearing, so he sate down in his chair again and poured himself out a bumper of port viciously.