Silverbridge arrived just before lunch, and was soon made to understand that it was impossible that he should go back that day.  Mrs Jones was very great on that occasion.  ’You are afraid of Reginald Dobbes,’ she said severely.

‘I think I am rather.’

’Of course you are.  How came it to pass that you of all men should submit yourself to such a tyrant?’

‘Good shooting, you know,’ said Silverbridge.

’But you dare not call an hour your own,—­or your soul.  Mr Dobbes and I are sworn enemies.  We both like Scotland, and unfortunately we have fallen into the same neighbourhood.  He looks upon me as the genius of sloth.  I regard him as the incarnation of tyranny.  He once said there should be no women in Scotland,—­just an old one here and there, who would know how to cook grouse.  I offered to go and cook his grouse!

‘Any friend of mine,’ continued Mrs Jones, ’who comes down to Crummie-Toddie without staying a day or two with me,—­will never be my friend any more.  I do not hesitate to tell you, Lord Silverbridge, that I call for your surrender, in order that I may show my power over Reginald Dobbes.  Are you a Dobbite?’

‘Not thorough-going,’ said Silverbridge.

’Then be a Montacute Jones-ite, or a Bocassen-ite, if, as possible, you prefer a young woman to an old one.’  At this moment Isabel Boncassen was standing close to them.

‘Killancodlem against Crummie-Toddie forever,’ said Miss barbarian, waving her handkerchief.  As a matter of course a messenger was sent back to Crummie-Toddie for the young lord’s evening apparel.

The whole of that afternoon was spent playing lawn-tennis with Miss Boncassen.  Lady Mabel was asked to join the party, but she refused, having promised to take a walk to a distant waterfall where the Codlem falls into the Archay.  A gentleman in knickerbockers was to have gone with her, and two other young ladies, but when the time came she was weary, she said,—­and she sat almost the entire afternoon looking at the game from a distance.  Silverbridge played well, but not so well as the pretty American.  With them were joined two others, somewhat inferior, so that Silverbridge and Miss Boncassen were on different sides.  They played game after game, and Miss Boncassen’s side always won.

Very little was said between Silverbridge and Miss Boncassen which did not refer to the game.  But Lady Mabel, looking on, told herself that they were making love to each other before her eyes.  And why shouldn’t they?  She asked herself that question in perfect good faith.  Why should they not be lovers?  Was ever anything prettier than the girl in her country dress, active as a fawn and as graceful?  Or could anything be more handsome, more attractive to a girl, more good-humoured, or better bred in his playful emulation than Silverbridge?

’When youth and pleasure meet.  To chase the glowing hours with flying feet!’ she said to herself over and over again.