ugent, a brisk woman of the world, with a fondness for vivid
clothing and a Spanish air which went oddly with it, took the trouble
one fine day to tackle her brother. "Look here, Jimmy," she said as
they breasted a mountain pass, "are you quite sure what you are up to
with these people?"

Urquhart's eyes took a chill tinge--a hard and pebbly stare. "I don't
know what you mean," he said.

"Men always say that, especially when they know very well. Of course I
mean the Macartneys. You didn't suppose I was thinking of the
Poplolly?" The Poplolly, I regret to say, was Francis Lingen, whom
Vera abhorred. The term was opprobrious, and inexact.

But Urquhart shrouded himself in ice. "Perhaps you might explain
yourself," he said.

Vera was not at all sure that she would. "You make it almost
impossible, you know."

They were all out in a party, and were to meet the luncheon and the
boys, who had gone round in the boat. As parties will have it, they
had soon scattered. Lingen had taken Margery Dacre to himself, Lucy
was with her husband. Urquhart, now he came to think of it, began to
understand that the sceptre was out of his hands. The pass, worn out
of the shelving rock by centuries of foot-work, wound itself about
the breasting cliffs like a scarf; below them lay the silver fiord,
and upon that, a mere speck, they could see the motor-boat, with a
wake widening out behind her like parallel lines of railway.

Urquhart saw in his mind that he would be a fool to quarrel with Vera.
She was not on his side, he could feel; but he didn't despair of her.
One way of putting her off him forever was to allow her to think him a
fool. That he could not afford.

"Don't turn against me for a mannerism, my dear," he said.

"I turn against you, if at all, for a lack of mannerism," said Vera
briskly. "It's too bad of you. Here I am as so much ballast for your
party, and when I begin to make myself useful, you pretend I'm not
there. But I _am_ there, you know."

"I was cross," he said, "because I'm rather worried, and I thought you
were going to worry me more."

"Well, maybe that I am,"--she admitted that. "But I don't like to see
a sharp-faced man make a donkey of himself. The credit of the family
is at stake."

He laughed. "I wouldn't be the first of us--and this wouldn't be the
first time. There's whimsy in the blood. Well--out with it. Let me
know the worst."

Vera stopped. "I intend to do it sitting. We've heaps of time. None