Lewis flushed in turn.  He recognized with pain the fulfilment of his fears.  He saw dismally how during the coming fight he would sink daily in the estimation of this small critic, while his opponent would as conspicuously rise.  The prospect did not soothe him, and he turned to Bertha Afflint, who was watching the scene with curious eyes.

“It’s very sad, Lewie,” she said, “but you’ll get no canvassers from Glenavelin.  We have all been pledged to Mr. Stocks for the last week.  Alice is a keen politician, and, I believe, has permanently unsettled Lord Manorwater’s easy-going Liberalism.  She believes in action; whereas, you know, he does not.”

“We all believe in action nowadays,” said Wratislaw.  “I could wish at times for the revival of ‘leisureliness’ as a party catch-word.”

And then there ensued a passage of light arms between the great man and Bertha which did not soothe Alice’s vexation.  She ignored the amiable George, seeing in him another of the half-hearted, and in a fine heat of virtue devoted herself to Mr. Stocks.  That gentleman had been melancholy, but the favour of Miss Wishart made him relax his heavy brows and become communicative.  He was flattered by her interest.  She heard his reminiscences with a smile and his judgments with attention.  Soon the whole table talked merrily, and two people alone were aware that breaches yawned under the unanimity.

Archness was not in Alice’s nature, and still less was coquetry.  When Lewis after lunch begged to be allowed to show her his dwelling she did not blush and simper, she showed no pretty reluctance, no graceful displeasure.  She thanked him, but coldly, and the two climbed the ridge above the lake, whence the whole glen may be seen winding beneath.  It was still, hot July weather, and the far hills seemed to blink and shimmer in the haze; but at their feet was always coolness in the blue depth of the loch, the heath-fringed shores, the dark pines, and the cold whinstone crags.

“You don’t relish the prospect of the next month?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.  “After all, it is only a month, and it will all be over before the shooting begins.”

“I cannot understand you,” she cried suddenly and impatiently.  “People call you ambitious, and yet you have to be driven by force to the simplest move in the game, and all the while you are thinking and talking as if a day’s sport were of far greater importance.”

“And it really vexes you—­Alice?” he said, with penitent eyes.

She drew swiftly away and turned her face, so that the man might not see the vexation and joy struggling for mastery.

“Of course it is none of my business, but surely it is a pity.”  And the little doctrinaire walked with head erect to the edge of the slope and studied intently the distant hills.