But the others were all over him, chattering like so many daws.

“Doesn’t he look a farmer, just?”

“Look at the colour of his face!”

“Sholto, your neck is like a bull’s!”

“Another white pudding for Master Sholto, please, Janet,” ordered Juley, smiling, and trying to make herself heard above the din. “Bairns, bairns, Mother’s ears are splitting!”

But they paid no heed to her, and as in the old days she mustered her flock and was heartily proud of them. There they were, her “hens of gold,” and in spite of all Eva Gedge might say and might say truly, the sight of them pleased her.

So she sat looking from one to another, not following nor anxious to follow any of their talk.

Linnet, shaved and dressed, was a different being. His long, narrow face showed pale certainly beside his brother’s but he was the handsomer of the two; and those somewhat exhausted features of his, with the very broad shoulders, long limbs and slender body so like his father’s, made a fine gentleman of him. Sholto, half a head shorter, was stocky with great thighs and calves. His features seemed still unfinished. But he had frank, slow-moving eyes and was loveable. He and Linnet chaffed each other with awkward, but observant affection.

As Joanna watched them, the thought of Lawrence Urquhart cropped up in her mind. Why had she asked him to call to-morrow? She now had the idea that her brothers for some reason would look down on him. They would even reckon the advantage they had in being Academy boys while Lawrence had only attended the High School. Georgie too was always an unsparing critic of her sister’s friends. She had once said that she could not – “was very sorry, but simply could not” – get over Phemie Pringle’s commonness.

Yet there it was, Phemie was an artist and great of soul where Georgie was the vainest of amateurs. And Lawrence? Comparing him in her secret mind with her brothers, Joanna felt him to be of finer grain, more compact and passionate, with more purpose hidden in him.

But when it came, as it happened, his visit counted to Joanna chiefly because of the piece of news of which he was the bearer.

Louis Pender, Lawrence was able to tell her, was coming back to Glasgow in a fortnight. He was coming on the very day Sholto’s boat was to sail. The Committee, after sharp disagreement had accepted two of his designs, holding over the others provisionally.

It was indeed curious how intensely and secretly this knowledge infused itself amid the disturbing atmosphere of Sholto’s farewell. It lurked for Joanna in every preparation for her brother’s departure and her agitation sought relief in a feverish, practical energy.