Lucy still paused a moment as they swung on with the scent of their cigars sending a little warmth into the damp air. She thought Mr. Bertram swayed a little before he joined the other, as if he would have liked to stay. Undeniably he was more genial than Raaf, more ready to yield to what she wanted. And usually she was alone in her walks, just a small woman about the road by herself, so that the feeling of leading two men about with her was pleasant. She regretted they did not come in to show Mrs. Nugent how she had been accompanied. She went slowly up the grassy bank alone, thinking of this. She had wanted so much to show Raaf to Mrs. Nugent, not, she fancied, that it was at all likely they would take to each other. Nelly Nugent was so quick, she would see through him in a moment. She would perceive that there was not, perhaps, a great deal in him. He was not a reader, nor an artist, nor any of the things Nelly cared for--only a rough fellow, a sportsman, and rather commonplace in his mind. He was only Raaf, say what you would. Oh! he was not the one to talk like that of poor Charlie. If Charlie was only Charlie, Raaf was nothing but Raaf--only a man who belonged to you, not one to admire independent of that. But whatever Raaf might do it would never have made any difference, certainly not to his mother, she did not suppose to any one, any more than it mattered to the poor old doctor what Charlie did, seeing he was his father’s Charlie; and that nothing could change. She went along very slowly, thinking this to herself--not a very profound thought, but yet it filled her mind. The windows were already shining with firelight and lamplight, looking very bright. The drawing-room was not at all a large room. It was under the shade of a veranda and opened to the ground, which made it a better room for summer than for winter. Lucy woke up from her thoughts and wondered whether in the winter that was coming Mrs. Nugent would find it cold. The two men went on round the common in the soft, damp evening air. “That’s one of the things one meets with, when one is long away,” said Raaf, with a voice half confused in his beard and his cigar. “The old doctor was a landmark; fine old fellow, and knew a lot; never knew one like him for all the wild creatures--observing their ways, don’t you know. He’d bring home as much from a walk as you or I would from a voyage--more, I daresay. I buy a few hideous things, and poor little Lucy shudders at them” (he was not so slow to notice as they supposed), “but I haven’t got the head for much, while he--And all spoiled because of a fool of a boy not worth a thought.” “But his own, I suppose,” said the other.