“My dear fellow,” said Scoutbush en grand serieux, “after all that you have done for our people at Aberalva, I should be very much shocked if any of my family thought any service shown to you a trouble.”

“Pray do not speak so,” said Frank, “I am fallen among angels, when I least expected.”

“Scoutbush as an angel!” shrieked Lucia, clapping her hands.  “Elsley, don’t you see the wings sprouting already, under his shooting jacket?”

“They are my braces, I suppose, of course,” said Scoutbush, who never understood a joke about himself, though he liked one about other people; while Elsley, who hated all jokes, made no answer—­at least none worth recording.  In fact, as the reader may have discovered, Elsley, save tete-a-tete with some one who took his fancy, was somewhat of a silent and morose animal, and, as little Scoutbush confided to Mellot, there was no getting a rise out of him.  All which Lucia saw as keenly as any one, and tried to pass off by chattering nervously and fussily for him, as well as for herself; whereby she only made him the more cross, for he could not the least understand her argument—­“Why, my dear, if you don’t talk to people, I must!”

“But why should people be talked to?”

“Because they like it, and expect it!”

“The more foolish they.  Much better to hold their tongues and think.”

“Or read your poetry, I suppose?” And then would begin a squabble.

Meanwhile there was one, at least, of the party, who was watching Lucia with most deep and painful interest.  Lord Scoutbush was too busy with his own comforts, especially with his fishing, to think much of this moroseness of Elsley’s.  “If he suited Lucia, very well.  His taste and hers differed:  but it was her concern, not his”—­was a very easy way of freeing himself from all anxiety on the matter:  but not so with Major Campbell.  He saw all this; and knew enough of human nature to suspect that the self-seeking which showed as moroseness in company, might show as downright bad temper in private.  Longing to know more of Elsley, if possible, to guide and help him, he tried to be intimate with him, as he had tried at Aberalva; paid him court, asked his opinion, talked to him on all subjects which he thought would interest him.  His conclusion was more favourable to Elsley’s head than to his heart.  He saw that Elsley was vain, and liked his attentions; and that lowered him in his eyes:  but he saw too that Elsley shrank from him; at first he thought it pride, but he soon found that it was fear; and that lowered him still more in his eyes.