The young man, sitting where the whole careless grace of Miss Glenwilliam's person was delightfully visible to him, showed a countenance red with wrath. Coryston faced round upon him, transformed. His frown had disappeared in a look of radiant good humor. "Look here, Arthur, you've got the money-bags--you might leave me the talking. Has he told you what's happened?" The question was addressed to Miss Glenwilliam, while the speaker shot an indicating thumb in his brother's direction. The girl looked embarrassed, and Arthur Coryston again came to the rescue. "We've no right to thrust our family affairs upon other people, Corry," he said, resolutely. "I told you so as we walked up." "Oh, but they're so interesting," was Coryston's cool reply as he took his seat by Marion Atherstone. "I'm certain everybody here finds them so. And what on earth have I taken Knatchett for, except to blazon abroad what our dear mother has been doing?" "I wish to heaven you hadn't taken Knatchett," said Arthur, sulkily. "You regard me as a nuisance? Well, I meant to be. I'm finding out such lots of things," added Coryston, slowly, while his eyes, wandering over the plain, ceased their restlessness for a moment and became fixed and dreamy. Dr. Atherstone caught the last words as he came out from his study. He approached his guests with an amused look at Coryston. But the necessary courtesies of the situation imposed themselves. So long as Arthur Coryston was present the Tory son of his Tory mother, an Opposition M.P. for a constituency, part of which was visible from the cottage garden, and a comparative stranger to the Atherstones, it was scarcely possible to let Coryston loose. The younger brother was there--Atherstone perfectly understood--simply because Miss Glenwilliam was their guest; not for his own _beaux yeux_ or his daughter's. But having ventured on to hostile ground, for a fair lady's sake, he might look to being kindly treated. Arthur, on his side, however, played his part badly. He rose indeed to greet Atherstone--whom he barely knew, and was accustomed to regard as a pestilent agitator--with the indifferent good breeding that all young Englishmen of the classes have at command; he was ready to talk of the view and the weather, and to discuss various local topics. But it was increasingly evident that he felt himself on false ground; lured there, moreover, by feelings he could hardly suppose were unsuspected by his hosts. Enid Glenwilliam watched him with secret but sympathetic laughter; and presently came to his aid. She rose from her seat. "It's a little hot here, Marion. Shall I have time to show Mr. Coryston the view from the wood-path before tea?" Marion assented. And the two tall figures strolled away across a little field toward a hanging wood on the edge of the hill. "Will she have him?" said Coryston to Marion Atherstone, looking after the departing figures. The question was disconcertingly frank. Marion laughed and colored.