“I guess it must be your kilt, Chester.”

“What must be my kilt?”

“You never used to take up so much room before. I think you’d better drive.”

So they changed places, and Carrie felt safer, though no more comfortable.

“I wonder why the British build their automobiles for sardines instead of human beings,” Chester speculated as they turned round into Glenbore.

“Never mind, it won’t be so long now before we reach Knocknacolly,” said Carrie.

It may be remembered that she and her sister-in-law had tried to cheer up with bright hangings one of the rooms of the Lodge for the visit of the Scottish Brotherhood of Action. With those hangings and with the lustral energy of the Widow Macdonald they had faintly lightened the gloom of that edifice in the baronial style which several years of emptiness and neglect had deepened. Nothing, however, they had been able to achieve in this direction was comparable to the effect achieved by the Macmillan and the Menzies tartan, the red and white of which was perhaps even more startling than the Buchanan polychrome.

Carrie need not have worried about the impression the young poet would make upon her unpoetical husband. After all, it was the brief glimpse Chester Royde had already caught of the Macmillan red and yellow from the window of the Daimler speeding up Glenbogle which had inspired the orange kilt he was now wearing. He stepped forward and shook the poet cordially by the hand.

“Mr Macmillan, I’m pleased to meet you,” he declared with a genuine warmth when Carrie had introduced the poet.

Nor was he less cordial when Robert Menzies, a swarthy little man with fine features, was presented to him.

“My sister-in-law was hoping to have the pleasure of meeting you this afternoon, Mr Menzies, and you too, Mr Macmillan, but she’d promised to go for a drive with our host’s eldest son who’s back on leave from India and so she couldn’t manage to come along with Mr Royde and myself,” said Carrie.

It was useless to pretend. Alan’s eyes were not quite so blue when he heard that Myrtle was not coming. She turned to the architect.

“Mr Royde is anxious to discuss our ideas for transforming or rebuilding Knocknacolly Lodge, Mr Menzies.”

“If you’ll come in, Mrs Royde, I have a few rough sketches I’d like to show you.”

Indeed it was useless to pretend. Instead of coming indoors with them to share in the discussion of the sketches Alan lingered behind and was studying the Austin from which he had been expecting to see Myrtle alight. Carrie allowed herself one sigh, and then concentrated upon the architecture of the new Knocknacolly shooting-lodge.

“There were one or two things you specially wanted to ask Mr Menzies, Chester.”