"
"You were particularly rude about yourself," said Wratislaw.
The young man laughed. "It's a way I have sometimes. It's an awkward
thing when a man's foes are of his own household."
The others seemed to see a catch in his mirth, a ring as of something
hollow. He opened some letters, and looked up from one with a twitching
face and a curious droop of the eyelids. "Miss Wishart is all right,"
he said. "My aunt says that she is none the worse, but that Stocks has
caught a tremendous cold. An unromantic ending!"
The meal ended, they wandered out to the lawn to smoke, and Wratislaw
found himself standing with a hand on his host's shoulder. He noticed
something distraught in his glance and air.
"Are you fit again to-day?" he asked.
"Quite fit, thanks," said Lewis, but his face belied him. He had
forgiven himself the incident of yesterday, but no proof of a non
sequitur could make him relinquish his dismal verdict. The wide morning
landscape lay green and soothing at his feet. Down in the glen men were
winning the bog-hay; up on the hill slopes they were driving lambs; the
Avelin hurried to the Gled, and beyond was the great ocean and the
infinite works of man. The whole brave bustling world was astir, little
and great ships hasting out of port, the soldier scaling the breach, the
adventurer travelling the deserts. And he, the fool, had no share in
this braggart heritage.
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