'A photo of Olive?'
'Yes.'
'The deuce he does. I have thought her sometimes too épris with our horsey friend Hawke Holcroft, and thus longed for your return. They renewed at Dundargue, an acquaintance formed last season in London, when Olive made some sensation, I assure you; and, now that you have seen her photo, what do you think of her—pretty?'
'Pretty! She is downright beautiful!'
'Ah—wait till you have seen her. She does credit to your mother's rearing and her governess's tutelage; but you have not exhibited much impatience hitherto. Gad, when I was your age——'
'You forget that she was such a child when we parted,' interrupted Allan, stroking out his long dark moustache. 'But was it not rather cool of him to show me her likeness?'
'Perhaps; but then it was done in ignorance of the situation, and it is probably the result of some conservatory flirtation.'
'But just as he showed it to me, was it not strange that I heard the cry of a plover overhead, and——'
Lord Aberfeldie interrupted his son by a hearty laugh, and tossed away the end of his cigar.
'After eight years' soldiering with the Black Watch, do you actually retain the superstition that the plover is a type of inconstancy, and the bird of ill-omen Burns, Scott, and Leyden describe it as being?'