Though Wellgood had business after lunch, Harry stayed on awhile, sitting out on the terrace by the lake, for the day was warm and fine. The coming of spring had mitigated the grimness of Nutley; the water that had looked dreary and dismal in the winter now sparkled in the sun. Harry was excellently well content with himself and his position. He told the two girls that things were shaping very well. Old Sir George Millington had decided to retire. He was to be the candidate; he would start his campaign through the villages of the Division in the late summer, when harvest was over; he could hardly be beaten; and he was "working like a horse" at his subjects. "The horse gets out of harness now and then!" said Isobel. "You don't want him to kill himself with work, Isobel?" asked Vivien reproachfully. "Visits to Nutley help the work; they inspire me," Harry declared, looking first at Vivien, then at Isobel. They were both, in their different ways, pleasant to look at. Their interest in him--in all he said and did, and in all he was going to do--was very pleasant also. "Oh yes, I'm working all right!" he laughed. "Really I have to, because of old Andy Hayes. He's getting quite keen on politics--reads all the evening after he gets back from town. Well, he's good enough to think I've read everything and know everything, and whenever we meet he pounds me with questions. I don't want Andy to catch me out, so I have to mug away." "That's your friend, Vivien," said Isobel, with a smile and a nod. "Yes, the solid man." "Oh, I know that story. Andy told me himself. He thought you behaved like a brick." "He did, anyhow. Why don't you bring him here, Harry?" "He's in town all day; I'll try and get him here some Saturday." "Does he still stay with the--with Mr. Rock?" asked Vivien. "No; he's taken lodgings. He's very thick with old Jack still, though. Of course it wouldn't do to tell him so, but it's rather a bore that he should be connected with Jack in that way. It doesn't make my mother any keener to have him at Halton, and it's a little difficult for me to press it." "It does make his position seem--just rather betwixt and between, doesn't it?" asked Isobel. "If only it wasn't a butcher!" protested Vivien. "O Vivien, the rules, the rules!" "Nothing against butchers," was one of the rules. "I know, but I would so much rather it had been a draper, or a stationer, or something--something clean of that sort." "I'm glad your father's not here. Be good, Vivien!" "However it's not so bad if he doesn't stay there any more," Harry charitably concluded. "Just going in for a drink with old Jack--everybody does that; and after all he's no blood relation." He laughed. "Though I dare say that's exactly what you'd call him, Vivien."