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.
The man was half amused, half pained, but his evil star was in the
ascendant. Had he known it, he would have been plain and natural, for
at no time had the girl ever been so near to him.
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