Fortunately he spoke in a low voice, but Lord Manorwater caught the name.

“You are talking about Lewie,” he said; and then to the table at large, “do you know that Lewie is home?  I saw him to-day.”

Bertha Afflint clapped her hands.  “Oh, splendid!  When is he coming over?  I shall drive to Etterick to-morrow.  No—­bother!  I can’t go to-morrow, I shall go on Wednesday.”

Lady Manorwater opened mild eyes of surprise.  “Why didn’t the boy write?” And the young Arthur indulged in sundry exclamations, “Oh, ripping, I say!  What?  A clinking good chap, my cousin Lewie!”

“Who is this Lewis the well-beloved?” said Mr. Stocks.  “I was talking about a very different person—­Lewis Haystoun, the author of a foolish book on Kashmir.”

“Don’t you like it?” said Lord Manorwater, pleasantly.  “Well, it’s the same man.  He is my nephew, Lewie Haystoun.  He lives at Etterick, four miles up the glen.  You will see him over here to-morrow or the day after.”

Mr. Stocks coughed loudly to cover his discomfiture.  Alice could not repress a little smile of triumph, but she was forbearing and for the rest of dinner exerted herself to appease her adversary, listening to his talk with an air of deference which he found entrancing.

Meanwhile it was plain that Lord Manorwater was not quite at ease with his company.  Usually a man of brusque and hearty address, he showed his discomfort by an air of laborious politeness.  He was patronized for a brief minute by Mr. Stocks, who set him right on some matter of agricultural reform.  Happening to be a specialist on the subject and an enthusiastic farmer from his earliest days, he took the rebuke with proper meekness.  The spectacled people were talking earnestly with his wife.  Arthur was absorbed in his dinner and furtive glances at his left-hand neighbour.  There remained Bertha Afflint, whom he had hitherto admired with fear.  To talk with her was exhausting to frail mortality, and he had avoided the pleasure except in moments of boisterous bodily and mental health.  Now she was his one resource, and the unfortunate man, rashly entering into a contest of wit, found himself badly worsted by her ready tongue.  He declared that she was worse than her mother, at which the unabashed young woman replied that the superiority of parents was the last retort of the vanquished.  He registered an inward vow that Miss Afflint should be used on the morrow as a weapon to quell Mr. Stocks.

When Alice escaped to the drawing-room she found Bertha and her sister—­a younger and ruddier copy—­busy with the letters which had arrived by the evening post.  Lady Manorwater, who reserved her correspondence for the late hours, seized upon the girl and carried her off to sit by the great French windows from which lawn and park sloped down to the moorland loch.  She chattered pleasantly about many things, and then innocently and abruptly asked her if she had not found her companion at table amusing.