The odds against the otter were too great, although it had for some hours baffled men who knew the river, and well-trained dogs.  It had stolen up shallow rapids, slipping between the watchers’ legs, dived under swimming dogs, made bold dashes along the bank, and hidden in belts of reeds.  Its capture had often looked certain and yet it had escaped.  At first Grace had noticed the animal’s confidence, beauty of form, and strength; but it had gradually got slack, hesitating, and limp.  Now, when it lurked, half-drowned, in the depths of the pool while its pitiless enemies waited for it to come up to breathe, she began to wish it would get away.

Thorn, the master of the hounds, was talking to his huntsman not far off.  He was a friend of Osborn’s, and Grace had once thought him a dashing and accomplished man of the world, but had recently, for no obvious reason, felt antagonistic.  Alan was not as clever as she had imagined; he was smart, sometimes cheaply smart, which was another thing.  Then he was beginning to get fat, and she vaguely shrank from the way he now and then looked at her.  On the whole, it was a relief to note that he was occupied.

For a few moments Grace let her eyes wander up the dale to the crags where the force leaped down from the red moor at Malton Head.  Belts of dry bent-grass shone like gold and mossy patches glimmered luminously green.  The fall looked like white lace drawn across the stones.  A streak of mist touched the lofty crag, and above it a soft white cloud trailed across the sky.  Then she turned as her brother spoke.

“Alan has given us a good hunt and means to make a kill.  He’s rather a selfish beast and a bit too sure of himself; but he runs the pack well and knows how to get the best out of life.  No Woolwich and sweating as a snubbed subaltern for him!  He stopped at home, saw his tenants farmed well, and shot his game.  That’s my notion of a country gentleman!”

“Father can look after Tarnside and a duty goes with owning land,” Grace remarked.  “A landlord who need not work ought to serve the State.  That idea was perhaps the best thing in the feudal system and it’s not altogether forgotten yet.  Father was right when he decided to make you a soldier.”

“He can send me to Woolwich, but after all that’s as far as he can go.  You’re not at your best when you’re improving,” Gerald rejoined; and added with a grin, “You don’t like old Alan, do you?  I thought you snubbed him half an hour since.”

Grace colored, but did not answer.  She had hurt her foot by falling from a mossy boulder and Thorn had come to help as she floundered across a shallow pool.  She was draggled and her hair was loose, and Thorn’s faint amusement annoyed her.  Somehow it hinted at familiarity.  She would not have resented it once, for they had been friends; but when she came home and he had tried to renew the friendship she had noted a subtle difference.  Alan was forty, but now she had left school the disparity of their ages was, in a sense, much less marked.  Then a shout roused her and she looked round.