The Half-Hearted | Page 7

was intoxicated
with the thought.
But Alice felt that she was in some way bound to make the most of Mr.
Stocks, and she set herself heroically to the task. She had never heard
of him, but then she was not well versed in the minutiae of things
political, and he clearly was a politician. Doubtless to her father his
name was a household word. So she spoke to him of Glenavelin and its
beauties.
He asked her if she had seen Royston Castle, the residence of his friend

the Duke of Sanctamund. When he had stayed there he had been much
impressed--
Then she spoke wildly of anything, of books and pictures and people
and politics. She found him well-informed, clever, and dogmatic. The
culminating point was reached when she embarked on a stray remark
concerning certain events then happening in India.
He contradicted her with a lofty politeness.
She quoted a book on Kashmir.
He laughed the authority to scorn. "Lewis Haystoun?" he asked. "What
can he know about such things? A wandering dilettante, the worst type
of the pseudo-culture of our universities. He must see all things through
the spectacles of his upbringing."
Fortunately he spoke in a low voice, but Lord Manorwater caught the
name.
"You are talking about Lewie," he said; and then to the table at large,
"do you know that Lewie is home? I saw him to-day."
Bertha Afflint clapped her hands. "Oh, splendid! When is he coming
over? I shall drive to Etterick to-morrow. No--bother! I can't go
to-morrow, I shall go on Wednesday."
Lady Manorwater opened mild eyes of surprise. "Why didn't the boy
write?" And the young Arthur indulged in sundry exclamations, "Oh,
ripping, I say! What? A clinking good chap, my cousin Lewie!"
"Who is this Lewis the well-beloved?" said Mr. Stocks. "I was talking
about a very different person--Lewis Haystoun, the author of a foolish
book on Kashmir."
"Don't you like it?" said Lord Manorwater, pleasantly. "Well, it's the
same man. He is my nephew, Lewie Haystoun. He lives at Etterick,
four miles up the glen. You will see him over here to-morrow or the

day after."
Mr. Stocks coughed loudly to cover his discomfiture. Alice could not
repress a little smile of triumph, but she was forbearing and for the rest
of dinner exerted herself to appease her adversary, listening to his talk
with an air of deference which he found entrancing.
Meanwhile it was plain that Lord Manorwater was not quite at ease
with his company. Usually a man of brusque and hearty address, he
showed his discomfort by an air of laborious politeness. He was
patronized for a brief minute by Mr. Stocks, who set him right on some
matter of agricultural reform. Happening to be a specialist on the
subject and an enthusiastic farmer from his earliest days, he took the
rebuke with proper meekness. The spectacled people were talking
earnestly with his wife. Arthur was absorbed in his dinner and furtive
glances at his left-hand neighbour. There remained Bertha Afflint,
whom he had hitherto admired with fear. To talk with her was
exhausting to frail mortality, and he had avoided the pleasure except in
moments of boisterous bodily and mental health. Now she was his one
resource, and the unfortunate man, rashly entering into a contest of wit,
found himself badly worsted by her ready tongue. He declared that she
was worse than her mother, at which the unabashed young woman
replied that the superiority of parents was the last retort of the
vanquished. He registered an inward vow that Miss Afflint should be
used on the morrow as a weapon to quell Mr. Stocks.
When Alice escaped to the drawing-room she found Bertha and her
sister--a younger and ruddier copy--busy with the letters which had
arrived by the evening post. Lady Manorwater, who reserved her
correspondence for the late hours, seized upon the girl and carried her
off to sit by the great French windows from which lawn and park
sloped down to the moorland loch. She chattered pleasantly about
many things, and then innocently and abruptly asked her if she had not
found her companion at table amusing.
Alice, unaccustomed to fiction, gave a hesitating "Yes," at which her
hostess looked pleased. "He is very clever, you know," she said, "and
has been very useful to me on many occasions."

Alice asked his occupation.
"Oh, he has done many things. He has been very brave and quite the
maker of his own fortunes. He educated himself, and then I think he
edited some Nonconformist paper. Then he went into politics, and
became a Churchman. Some old man took a liking to him and left him
his money, and that was the condition. So I believe he is pretty well off
now and is waiting