FullReads

But here there was a burlesque outcry and a good-humored protest from the gentlemen around her against this manifestly leading question. “It’s no fair! Ye’ll not answer her–for the dignity of our sex.” Yet in the midst of it, it suddenly occurred to the consul that there HAD been a slip of paper wrapped around it, which had come off and remained in the keyhole. The blue eyes of the lady were meanwhile sounding his, but he only smiled and said:–

“Then it seems it IS peculiar?”

When the conversation became more general he had time to observe other features of the lady than her placid eyes. Her light hair was very long, and grew low down the base of her neck. Her mouth was firm, the upper lip slightly compressed in a thin red line, but the lower one, although equally precise at the corners, became fuller in the centre and turned over like a scarlet leaf, or, as it struck him suddenly, like the tell-tale drop of blood on the mouth of a vampire. Yet she was very composed, practical, and decorous, and as the talk grew more animated–and in the vicinity of Mrs. MacSpadden, more audacious–she kept a smiling reserve of expression,–which did not, however, prevent her from following that lively lady, whom she evidently knew, with a kind of encouraging attention.

“Kate is in full fling to-night,” she said to the hostess. Lady Macquoich smiled ambiguously–so ambiguously that the consul thought it necessary to interfere for his friend. “She seems to say what most of us think, but I am afraid very few of us could voice as innocently,” he smilingly suggested.

“She is a great friend of yours,” returned the lady, looking at him through her half-veiled lids. “She has made us quite envy her.”

“And I am afraid made it impossible for ME to either sufficiently thank her or justify her taste,” he said quietly. Yet he was vexed at an unaccountable resentment which had taken possession of him–who but a few hours before had only laughed at the porter’s criticism.

After the ladies had risen, the consul with an instinct of sympathy was moving up towards “Jock” MacSpadden, who sat nearer the host, when he was stopped midway of the table by the dignitary who had sat opposite to Mrs. MacSpadden. “Your frien’ is maist amusing wi’ her audacious tongue–ay, and her audacious ways,” he said with large official patronage; “and we’ve enjoyed her here immensely, but I hae mae doots if mae Leddy Macquoich taks as kindly to them. You and I–men of the wurrld, I may say–we understand them for a’ their worth; ay!–ma wife too, with whom I observed ye speakin’–is maist tolerant of her, but man! it’s extraordinar'”–he lowered his voice slightly–“that yon husband of hers does na’ check her freedoms with Kilcraithie. I wadna’ say anythin’ was wrong, ye ken, but is he no’ over confident and conceited aboot his wife?”

“I see you don’t know him,” said the consul smilingly, “and I’d be delighted to make you acquainted. Jock,” he continued, raising his voice as he turned towards MacSpadden, “let me introduce you to Sir Alan Deeside, who don’t know YOU, although he’s a great admirer of your wife;” and unheeding the embarrassed protestations of Sir Alan and the laughing assertions of Jock that they were already acquainted, he moved on beside his host. That hospitable knight, who had been airing his knowledge of London smart society to his English guest with a singular mixture of assertion and obsequiousness, here stopped short. “Ay, sit down, laddie, it was so guid of ye to come, but I’m thinkin’ at your end of the table ye lost the bit fun of Mistress MacSpadden. Eh, but she was unco’ lively to-night. ‘Twas all Kilcraithie could do to keep her from proposin’ your health with Hieland honors, and offerin’ to lead off with her ain foot on the table! Ay, and she’d ha’ done it. And that’s a braw rose she’s been givin’ ye–and ye got out of it claverly wi’ Lady Deeside.”