“What is Miss Austin like?” she asked.

Foster was careful about his reply.  He wanted Alice to understand that he was not Carmen’s lover, which needed tact; but he was her friend and must do her justice, while any breach of good taste would be noted and condemned.  He did his best, without learning if he had produced the right effect, for Alice let the matter drop, as if it no longer interested her.

“Perhaps it’s a pity you helped the men who were poaching,” she said.  “I’m afraid you’re fond of romantic adventures.”

“I’m sometimes rash and sorry afterwards,” Foster admitted.  “However, there’s an excuse for the other thing.  This is a romantic country and I’ve spent a long time in Canada, which is altogether businesslike.”

Alice gave him an approving smile, but she said, “One shouldn’t be sorry afterwards.  Isn’t that rather weak?”

“I’m human,” Foster rejoined.  “A thing looks different when you come to pay for doing it.  It’s pretty hard not to feel sorry then.”

“After all, that may be better than counting the cost beforehand and leaving the thing undone.”

“You’re a Borderer; one of the headstrong, old-fashioned kind that broke the invasions and afterwards defied their own rulers for a whim.”

“As a matter of fact, a number of them were very businesslike.  They fought for their enemies’ cattle and the ransom of captured knights.”

“Not always,” Foster objected.  “At Flodden, where the Ettrick spears all fell in the smashed squares, the Scots king came down from his strong camp to meet the English on equal terms.  Then it wasn’t businesslike when Buccleugh, with his handful of men, carried off Kimmont Willie from Carlisle.  There was peace between the countries and he had two offended sovereigns to hold him accountable.”

“It looks as if you had been reading something about our history,” Alice said smiling.

“I haven’t read much,” Foster answered modestly.  “Still, we have a few books at the mill, and in the long winter evenings, when the thermometer marks forty degrees below and you sit close to the red-hot stove, there’s nothing to do but read.  It would be hard for you to picture our little room; the match-boarding, split by the changes from heat to bitter cold, the smell of hot iron, the dead silence, and the grim white desolation outside.  Perhaps it’s curious, but after working hard all day, earning dollars, one can’t read rubbish.  One wants romance, but romance that’s real and has the truth in it.”

“But your own life has been full of adventure.”

“In a way, but there was always a business proposition to justify the risk.  It’s good to be reckless now and then, and I’ve felt as I read about your ancestors that I envied them.  There must have been some charm in riding about the moors with one’s lady’s glove on one’s steel cap, ready to follow where adventure called.”