"I wish to heaven, Terry," she murmured, "that you could find a master as El Sangre has done. You need teaching." When she turned from the window, she found Vance watching her. He had a habit of obscurely melting into a background and looking out at her unexpectedly. All at once she knew that he had been there listening during all of her talk with Terence. Not that the talk had been of a peculiarly private nature, but it angered her. There was just a semblance of eavesdropping about the presence of Vance. For she knew that Terence unbosomed himself to her as he would do in the hearing of no other human being. However, she mastered her anger and smiled at her brother. He had taken all these recent changes which were so much to his disadvantage with a good spirit that astonished and touched her. "Do you know what I'm going to give Terry for his birthday?" he said, sauntering toward her. "Well?" A mention of Terence and his welfare always disarmed her completely. She opened her eyes and her heart and smiled at her brother. "There's no set of Scott in the house. I'm going to give Terry one." "Do you think he'll ever read the novels? I never could. That antiquated style, Vance, keeps me at arm's length." "A stiff style because he wrote so rapidly. But there's the greatest body and bone of character. Except for his heroes. Terry reminds me of them, in a way. No thought, not very much feeling, but a great capacity for physical action." "I think you'd like to be Terry's adviser," she said. "I wouldn't aspire to the job," yawned Vance, "unless I could ride well and shoot well. If a man can't do that, he ceases to be a man in Terry's eyes. And if a woman can't talk pure English, she isn't a woman." "That's because he's young," said Elizabeth. "It's because he's a prig," sneered Vance. He had been drawn farther into the conversation than he planned; now he retreated carefully. "But another year or so may help him."