"It's an elastic term. Do you mean that he wears good clothes and that sort of thing?"
"No. I don't mean that."
"Then, he's a thorough good chap that a fellow might know?"
Isla, with a vision of Rosmead's calm, strong, fine face in front of her, sat back suddenly and began to laugh.
"What's the joke?" asked Malcolm, mildly surprised.
But she did not give him any satisfaction. She felt tempted to say that very probably had Rosmead known the facts of the case he might have declined the honour of Malcolm's acquaintance. She told herself, however, that she must try not to break the bruised reed. Yet there was not much of the appearance of the bruised reed about the airy Malcolm, who looked as if he had not a care in the world.
He was very kind and amusing on the journey, telling her lots of stories of his Indian experiences. More than once she felt herself almost completely succumbing to his spell and inclined to accept without reservation his own estimate of himself.
It was dark when they reached the station at Lochearnhead, where the wagonette from the hotel was waiting for them.
Malcolm elected to sit on the driver's seat and to take the reins from Jamie Forbes, and so Isla was left to her own contemplations in the roomy space behind. She was not sorry that it was so. Once more back in the Glen, she experienced a return of all her cares, accentuated, because the biggest one, embodied in the flesh, was in front, carrying on an animated conversation with Jamie, from whom, in a few minutes' time, he wrested the whole gossip of the Glen.
He learned that the hotel business was flourishing exceedingly, now that the making of the new railway line was coming near the head of the Loch. It had been started only a year when Malcolm last went away, and now they were at work on the viaduct, which had just escaped being built on Achree land.