All the same, the fleshpots of Pitlochry had by no means put his wife out of his mind.  His incurable laziness and procrastination in small things had led him to let slip post after post; but that very morning, at any rate, he had really written her a decent letter.  And he was beginning to be anxious to hear from her about the yachting plan.  If Lady Dunstable had asked him a few days later, he was not sure he would have accepted so readily.  After all, the voyage might be stormy, and the lady—­difficult.  Doris must be dull in London,—­“poor little cat!”

But then a very natural wrath returned upon him.  Why on earth had she stayed behind?  No doubt Lady Dunstable was formidable, but so was Doris in her own way.  “She’d soon have held her own.  Lady D. would have had to come to terms!” However, he remembered with some compunction that Doris did seem to have been a good deal neglected at Crosby Ledgers, and that he had not done much to help her.

* * * * *

It was an “off” day for the shooters, and Lady Dunstable’s guests were lounging about the garden, writing letters or playing a little leisurely golf on the lower reaches of the moor.  Some of the ladies, indeed, had not yet appeared downstairs; a sleepy heat reigned over the valley with its winding stream, and veiled the distant hills.  Meadows’s companion, Ralph Barrow, a young novelist of promise, had gone fast asleep on the grass; Meadows was drowsing over his book; the dogs slept on the terrace steps; and in the summer silence the murmur of the river far below stole up the hill on which the house stood, and its soft song held the air.

Suddenly there was a disturbance.  The dogs sprang up and barked.  There was a firm step on the gravel.  Lady Dunstable, stick in hand, her short leather-bound skirt showing boots and gaiters of the most business-like description, came quickly towards the seat on which Meadows sat.

“Mr. Meadows, I summon you for a walk!  Sir Luke and Mr. Frome are coming.  We propose to get to the tarn and back before lunch.”

The tarn was at least two miles away, a stiff climb over difficult moor.  Meadows, startled from something very near sleep, looked up, and a spirit of revolt seized upon him, provoked by the masterful tone and eyes of the lady.

“Very sorry, Lady Dunstable!—­but I must write some letters before luncheon.”

“Oh no!—­put them off!  I have been thinking of what you told me yesterday of your scheme for your new set of lectures.  I have a great deal to say to you about it.”

“I really shouldn’t be worth talking to now,” laughed Meadows; “this heat has made me so sleepy.  To-night—­or after tea—­by all means!”

Lady Dunstable looked annoyed.

“I am expecting the Duke’s party at tea,” she said peremptorily.  “This will be my only chance to-day.”

“Then let’s put it off—­till to-morrow!” said Meadows, as he rose, still smiling.  “It is most kind of you, but I really must write my letters, and my brains are pulp.  But I will escort you through the garden, if I may.”