f a
lover. He could not pose as a mirror of all virtues, a fanatic for the
True and the Good. Somehow or other he had acquired an air of
self-seeking egotism, unscrupulousness, which he felt miserably must
make him unlovely in certain eyes. Nor would the contest he was
entering upon improve this fancied reputation of his. He would have to
say hard, unfeeling things against what all the world would applaud as
generous sentiment.

When the others had gone yawning to bed, he returned and sat at the
window for a little, smoking hard and puzzling out the knots which
confronted him. He had a dismal anticipation of failure. Not
defeat--that was a little matter; but an abject show of incompetence.
His feelings pulled him hither and thither. He could not utter moral
platitudes to checkmate his opponent's rhetoric, for, after all, he was
honest; nor could he fill the part of the cold critic of hazy sentiment;
gladly though he would have done it, he feared the reproach in girlish
eyes. This good man was on the horns of a dilemma. Love and habit, a
generous passion and a keen intellect dragged him alternately to their
side, and as a second sign of weakness the unwilling scribe has to
record that his conclusion as he went to bed was to let things drift--to
take his chance.

CHAPTER IX

THE EPISODES OF A DAY

It is painful to record it, but when the Glenavelin party arrived at
noon of the next day it was only to find the house deserted. Lady
Manorwater, accustomed to the vagaries of her nephew, led the guests
over the place and found to her horror that it seemed undwelt in. The
hall was in order, and the tart and rosy lairds of Etterick looked down
from their Raeburn canvases on certain signs of habitation; but the
drawing-rooms were dingy with coverings and all the large rooms were in
the same tidy disarray. Then, wise from experience, she led the way to
Lewis's sanctum, and found there a pretty luncheon-table and every token
of men's presence. Soon the four tenants arrived, hot and breathless,
from the hill, to find Bertha Afflint deep in rods and guns, Miss
Wishart and Lady Manorwater ensconced in the great armchairs, and Mr.
Stocks casting a critic's eye over the unruly bookshelves.

Wratislaw's presence at first cast a certain awe on the assembly. His
name was so painfully familiar, so consistently abused, that it was hard
to refrain from curiosity. Lady Manorwater, an ancient ally, greeted
him effusively, and Alice c