Lady Lochore plunged upon him. “No, Edmund, no! not there! See boy, this is your uncle.” She clutched at David’s sleeve, while Madam Tutterville’s tears of easy emotion ran into her melting smile; and quite unscriptural exclamations, such as “duck,” and “little pet,” and “lambkin” fell from her delighted lips. “Speak to uncle David, darling! David, won’t you say a word to my child?” Ellinor could almost have echoed the wail—it cut into her womanly heart to see David repel the little one. But he bent and looked down searchingly into the little face. At that moment the child, again struggling against the maternal control, drew his baby brows together and set his baby features into a scowl of temper. Sir David looked; and in the defiant eyes, in the little set mouth, in the very frown, saw the image of his traitor friend. His own brows gathered into as black a knot as if he had been confronting Lochore himself. He drew himself up and folded his arms: “Cease prompting the child, Maud,” said he, “let his lips speak truth, at least as long as they may!” He turned and left them. The little Master of Lochore was ill-accustomed to meet an angry eye or to hear a disapproving voice. And, as his mother rose to her feet, shooting fury through her wet eyes upon the discomfited circle, he, too, glanced round for comfort and rapidly making his choice, flung himself upon Ellinor and hid his face in her skirts, screaming. The clinging hands, the hot, tear-stained cheeks, the baby lips, opened yet responsive to her kisses—Ellinor never forgot the touch of these things. Almost it was, when Lady Lochore wrenched him from her arms, as if something of her own had been plucked from her. “I want the pretty lady, I will have the pretty lady!” roared the heir, as Josephine, the nurse, and Margery carried him between them to his nursery. As Lady Lochore, following in their wake, swept by Ellinor, she gathered her draperies and shot a single phrase from between her teeth. It was so low, however, that Ellinor only caught one word. The blood leaped to her brow as under the flick of a lash. But even alone, in her bed at night, she would not, could not admit to herself that it had had the hideous significance which the look, the gesture seemed to throw into it. “So it is war!” said Lady Lochore, standing in the middle of her gorgeous room, the flame of anger devouring her tears. “Well, so much the better!” She stood before the mirror, her chin sunk on her breast, biting at the laces of her kerchief, while her great eyes stared unseeingly at the reflection of her own sullen, wasted beauty. War! On the whole it suited her better than a hypocritical peace. Hers was not a nature that could long wear a mask. She was one who could better fight for what she loved than fawn. And now she had got her foot into her old home at last; aye, and her boy’s! After so many years of struggle and failure it was a triumph that must augur well for the future.