After they had discussed the bombardment and the landing, the prospects of more fighting and the possibility of a blockade, and had laughed till their sides ached at the oddities and eccentricities brought out by the unusual situation, McLeod said suddenly:
"Say, Doc, you have not told me anything about the Highland girl. How is she?"
"Just as big a conundrum as ever, Mac."
"What! Have you not been getting along well?"
"No! I don't know where I'm at."
"Why? I thought from the way she spoke of you, and the way she received you when you came back from Keelung, that things were bound to go like a house on fire."
"Well, Mac, for a few days I was feeling pretty good myself. I thought that I was making great progress. But the day of the first bombardment my castle in the air was blown sky-high and there has hardly a fragment of it come back to earth yet."
He then told of the tennis game and of how disgusted with himself he had been. To his surprise McLeod did not take it very seriously. He expressed concern at Sinclair's narrow escape from the shell, but rather laughed about the rest of the incident, especially at his friend's having left the lawn in a tantrum, as he called it.
"You would have been madder than I was," retorted Sinclair, "if you had been in my place."
"Of course I should—if I had been in your place, because like you I should not have looked for the right reason for her actions—that is, if I had been in your place."