The two men at the table instantly found themselves on the verge of matters as it were within the veil. They looked uncomfortable, almost unhappy, as men do on these occasions. Only Julian Wemyss went on with his usual serenity. "My friend offered to take the responsibility of Patsy off our hands. She is a wise woman and a good woman. There lives no man who dares say different--" At this point both Adam Ferris and the Earl thought of the man in Vienna who had once dared, and whom the gentle-mannered duellist before them had sent quickly to his own place, with no more time given than to retract his words and receive holy absolution. For in the Austria of that time two gentlemen took a priest as well as a doctor with them to the field of honour. Then Adam Ferris remembered his lonely house below the dark green pines and demanded with a sudden darkening of humour, "And how long is this going to last?" It was on the tip of Julian's tongue to answer, "Till Patsy is married." For indeed that had been his real thought. But he only said, "For a year or two, brother--it is better so--she runs the hills like a wild thing. Why, officers of his Majesty have boasted of having met and talked to her dressed only in yellow sandals and a blue bathing dress!" "And, pray, whose fault was that?" her father demanded. "Not mine," said Julian calmly, "she ran to save the Glenanmays lads from the press-gang; and if the sandals were mine, she ran better with them than without." "So have I heard all that," said my Lord. "But if only she were a daughter of mine, I should not send her to London to be made as commonplace and artificial as everything else about the Hanoverian court." "That, my Lord," said Julian, "is the opinion of a partial grandfather. Pardon me for my freedom, but if that boy Louis had been your son, you would have packed him off to dree his weird in the army. And yet he is a wise enough lad, and has come to no great harm--nay, I know him to be both brave and chivalrous--" "He is a De Raincy," said his grandfather, rather haughtily. "And as such should have a career," Julian continued without heeding the expression on my Lord's face. "I have heard of a man who had the highest prize of the most distinguished of careers right in his grasp, yet one fine day dropped everything to go out in an unstarched linen shirt with another man at six o'clock in the morning!" "When Louis de Raincy has my reasons for doing the like," said Julian, looking directly at the Earl, "you can welcome him home and let him watch the trees grow in the park. He will have given his proofs and learned the meaning of life." "I beg your pardon!" said Lord Raincy, "I recognize that what you say is true. I am not sure, however, whether I can afford to let Louis go. But perhaps you came back from France to suggest as much to me." Julian Wemyss laughed for the first time, a clear light-running laugh very pleasant to hear.