This pair were on the happiest terms, fully understanding each other; but it was very different with the others, between whom conversation had wholly ceased. Lady Lindores now drew her shawl round her, and complained that it was getting chilly. "That is the worst of Scotland," she said--"you can never trust the finest day. A sharp wind will come round a corner all in a moment and spoil your pleasure." This was most unprovoked slander of the northern skies, which were beaming down upon her at the moment with the utmost brightness, and promising hours of sunshine; but after such a speech there was nothing to be done but to go down hill again to the house, where the carriage was waiting. John, who lingered behind to pull himself together after his downfall, found, to his great surprise, that Edith lingered too. But it seemed to him that he was incapable of saying anything to her. To point the contrast between himself and Millefleurs by a distracted silence, that, of course, was the very thing to do to take away any shadow of a chance he might still have! But he had no chance. What possibility was there that an obscure country gentleman, who had never done anything to distinguish himself, should be able to stand for a moment against the son of a rich duke, a marquis, a millionaire, and a kind of little hero to boot, who had been very independent and original, and made himself a certain reputation, though it was one of which some people might be afraid? There was only one thing in which he was Millefleurs's superior, but that was the meanest and poorest of all. John felt inclined to burst out into savage and brutal laughter at those soft curves and flowing outlines, as the little man, talking continuously, as he had talked to Edith, walked on in front with her mother. The impulse made him more and more ashamed of himself, and yet he was so mean as to indulge it, feeling himself a cad, and nothing else. Edith laughed too, softly, under her breath. But she said quickly--"We should not laugh at him, Mr Erskine. He is a very good little man. He has done more than all of us put together. They called him Tommy in America," said the traitress, with another suppressed laugh. John was for a moment softened by the "we" with which she began, and the gibe with which she ended. But his ill-humour and jealous rage were too much for him.