The notion pleased the gentleman.  If a second match could be arranged he might play and show his prowess.  In all likelihood this solemn and bookish laird, presumably brought up at home, would be a poor enough player.

“I played a lot at school,” he said.  “In fact I was in the Eleven for two years and I played in the Authentics match, and once against the Eton Ramblers.  A strong lot they were.”

“Let me see.  Was that about seven years ago?  I seem to remember.”

“Seven years ago,” said Mr. Thompson.  “But why?  Did you see the match?”

“No, I wasn’t in the match; I had twisted my ankle, jumping.  But I captained the Ramblers that season, so I remember it.”

Respect grew large in Mr. Thompson’s eyes.  Here were modesty and distinction equally mated.  The picture of the shy student had gone from his memory.

“If you like to come up to Etterick we might get up a match from the village,” said Lewis courteously.  “Ourselves with the foresters and keepers against the villagers wouldn’t be a bad arrangement.”

To Alice the whole conversation struck a jarring note.  His eye kindled and he talked freely on sport.  Was it not but a new token of his incurable levity?  Mr. Wishart, who had understood little of the talk, found in this young man strange stuff to shape to a politician’s ends.  Contrasted with the gravity of Mr. Stocks, it was a schoolboy beside a master.

“I have been reading,” he said slowly, “reading a speech of the new Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.  I cannot understand the temper of mind which it illustrates.  He talks of the Bosnian war, and a brave people struggling for freedom, as if it were merely a move in some hideous diplomatists’ game.  A man of that sort cannot understand a moral purpose.”

“Tommy—­I mean to say Mr. Wratislaw—­doesn’t believe in Bosnian freedom, but you know he is a most ardent moralist.”

“I do not understand,” said Mr. Wishart drily.

“I mean that personally he is a Puritan, a man who tries every action of his life by a moral standard.  But he believes that moral standards vary with circumstances.”

“Pernicious stuff, sir.  There is one moral law.  There is one Table of Commandments.”

“But surely you must translate the Commandments into the language of the occasion.  You do not believe that ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is absolute in every case?”

“I mean that except in the God-appointed necessity of war, and in the serving of criminal justice, killing is murder.”

“Suppose a man goes travelling,” said Lewis with abstracted eyes, “and has a lot of native servants.  They mutiny, and he shoots down one or two.  He saves his life, he serves, probably, the ends of civilization.  Do you call that murder?”

“Assuredly.  Better, far better that he should perish in the wilderness than that he should take the law into his own hands and kill one of God’s creatures.”