"A.m., or p.m.?"
Alec made no reply. He was listening to what Elsie was saying to Bond. Jealousy was rioting in his heart, and he had no ears but for the woman he loved.
"Morning or afternoon?" persisted Maggie.
Alec turned a perplexed face to her, and said, "It's night, of course."
"Oh, I know that," she said, in a low voice, "and very dark and gloomy."
The sarcasm did not hit the mark. He confined his attention, apparently, to his plate; but his ears were lent to his right-hand neighbours, whose conversation never flagged. They rattled on at a good pace over the familiar tracks of station topics.
By-and-by dinner was over. The room in which they were seated was dining-room and drawing-room combined. The McLeans had primitive ways, and money was scarce, so the old house had not been added to. Everything was plain and simple. McLean would not allow anything to be changed. The whole place reminded him of his wife, and he would not alter or add to the house.
The front door was thrown open; the family and the two visitors trooped out on the verandah. Elsie sat on a short seat, and Bond placed himself beside her. There was only room for two. Alec had not bargained for this. He had thought that Elsie would relent, and, when they were out of the glare of the lamps, return to her old manner with him. He could not imagine what had offended her; but evidently something had started up between them—some misunderstanding on her part, some rumour; some busybody's poisonous tone; something he had unwittingly said or done. Just now it was plain he was not wanted. He was out of the running. He wasn't in the swim. He was out of his reckoning, and among the breakers. He thought all the billows were going over him.
McLean retired to a corner of the verandah, and spun his own troubles out of himself, and wound them about him in solitary companion-lessness.
Maggie put her arm into Alec's, and drew him to the end of the verandah, and pointed to the Pleiades, which were shining with their ghost-like light.