"I don't think it is such a noble thing to shoot birds, Lord Millefleurs."
"But yet you don't dislike grouse—and it must be killed somehow," said John, somewhat irritated, as was natural.
"My dear fellow, I don't find fault with you. I see your position perfectly. It is a thing you have always done. It is an occupation, and at the same time an excitement, a pleasure. I have felt the same thing in California with the cattle. But it doesn't amuse me, and I am not a great shot. I will help to carry your luncheon, if Lady Lindores will let me, and enjoy the spectacle of so many healthy happy persons who feel that they have earned their dinner. All that I sympathise in perfectly. You will excuse me saying dinner," said Millefleurs, with pathos. "When we got our food after a morning's work we always called it dinner. In many things I have quite returned to civilisation; but there are some particulars still in which I slip—forgive me. May we sit down here upon the heather and tell stories? I had a reputation once in that way. You would not care for my stories, Lady Edith; you know them all by heart. Now this is what I call delightful," said little Millefleurs, arranging himself carefully upon the heather, and taking off his hat. "You would say it is lovely, if you were an American."
"Do you mean the moor? I think it is very lovely, with all the heather and the gorse, and the burns and the bees. Out of Scotland, is there anything like it?" Edith said.
"Oh yes, in several places; but it is not the moor, it is the moment. It is lovely to sit here. It is lovely to enjoy one's self, and have a good time. Society is becoming very American," said Millefleurs. "There are so many about. They are more piquant than any other foreigners. French has become absurd, and Italian pedantic; but it is amusing to talk a foreign language which is in English words, don't you know."
"You are to come back with them to dinner, Mr Erskine," Lady Lindores said. She thought it better, notwithstanding her prevailing fear that Millefleurs would be absurd, to leave him at liberty to discourse to Edith, as he loved to discourse. "I hope you are going to have a fine day. The worst is, you will all be so tired at night you will not have a word to bestow upon any one."
"I have not too many at any time," said John, with a glance, which he could not make quite friendly, at the visitor—who was flowing blandly on with his lisp, with much gentle demonstration, like a chemical operator or a prestidigitateur, with his plump hands. Our young man was not jealous as yet, but a little moved with envy—being not much of a talker, as he confessed—of Millefleurs's fluency. But he had thrown himself at Edith's feet, and in this position felt no bitterness, nor would have changed places with any one, especially as now and then she would give him a glance in which there was a secret communication and mirthful comment upon the other who occupied the foreground. Lady Lindores preferred, however, that he should talk to her and withdraw his observation from her daughter. Reluctantly, against the grain, she was beginning in her turn to plot and to scheme. She was ashamed of herself, yet, having once taken up the plan, it touched her pride that it should be carried out.
"I have always found you had words enough whenever you wished to say them," she said. "Perhaps you will tell me everybody has that. And Lord Lindores tells me you don't do yourself justice, Mr Erskine. He says you speak very well, and have such a clear head. I think," she added with a sigh, "it is you who ought to be in Parliament, and not Rintoul."
"That is past thinking of," John said, with a little heightened colour. He thought so himself; but neither could the party bear a divided interest, nor had he himself any influence to match that of Lord Lindores.
"You are going to Tinto on Tuesday," said Lady Lindores, "with the rest? Do you know, Mr Erskine, my boy has never met his brother-in-law since that evening here, when some words passed. I never could make out what they were. Not enough to make a quarrel of? not enough to disturb Carry——"