PAGE 8
A Rose Of Glenbogie
by
“You are not dancing?” she said.
“No.”
“Perhaps you are more agreeably employed?”
“At this exact moment, certainly.”
She cast a disdainful glance at him, crossed the hall, and followed Kilcraithie.
“Hang me, if I understand it all!” mused the consul, by no means good-humoredly. “Does she think I have been spying upon her and her noble chieftain? But it’s just as well that I didn’t tell her anything.”
He turned to follow them. In the vestibule he came upon a figure which had halted before a large pier-glass. He recognized M. Delfosse, the French visitor, complacently twisting the peak of his Henri Quatre beard. He would have passed without speaking, but the Frenchman glanced smilingly at the consul and his buttonhole. Again the flower!
“Monsieur is decore,” he said gallantly.
The consul assented, but added, not so gallantly, that though they were not in France he might still be unworthy of it. The baleful flower had not improved his temper. Nor did the fact that, as he entered the room, he thought the people stared at him–until he saw that their attention was directed to Lady Deeside, who had entered almost behind him. From his hostess, who had offered him a seat beside her, he gathered that M. Delfosse and Kilcraithie had each temporarily occupied his room, but that they had been transferred to the other wing, apart from the married couples and young ladies, because when they came upstairs from the billiard and card room late, they sometimes disturbed the fair occupants. No!–there were no ghosts at Glenbogie. Mysterious footsteps had sometimes been heard in the ladies’ corridor, but–with peculiar significance–she was AFRAID they could be easily accounted for. Sir Alan, whose room was next to the MacSpaddens’, had been disturbed by them.
He was glad when it was time to escape to the billiard-room and tobacco. For a while he forgot the evening’s adventure, but eventually found himself listening to a discussion–carried on over steaming tumblers of toddy–in regard to certain predispositions of the always debatable sex.
“Ye’ll not always judge by appearances,” said Sir Alan. “Ye’ll mind the story o’ the meenester’s wife of Aiblinnoch. It was thocht that she was ower free wi’ one o’ the parishioners–ay! it was the claish o’ the whole kirk, while none dare tell the meenester hisself–bein’ a bookish, simple, unsuspectin’ creeter. At last one o’ the elders bethocht him of a bit plan of bringing it home to the wife, through the gospel lips of her ain husband! So he intimated to the meenester his suspicions of grievous laxity amang the female flock, and of the necessity of a special sermon on the Seventh Command. The puir man consented–although he dinna ken why and wherefore–and preached a gran’ sermon! Ay, man! it was crammed wi’ denunciation and an emptyin’ o’ the vials o’ wrath! The congregation sat dumb as huddled sheep–when they were no’ starin’ and gowpin’ at the meenester’s wife settin’ bolt upright in her place. And then, when the air was blue wi’ sulphur frae tae pit, the meenester’s wife up rises! Man! Ivry eye was spearin’ her–ivry lug was prickt towards her! And she goes out in the aisle facin’ the meenester, and–“
Sir Alan paused.
“And what?” demanded the eager auditory.
“She pickit up the elder’s wife, sobbin’ and tearin’ her hair in strong hysterics.”
At the end of a relieved pause Sir Alan slowly concluded: “It was said that the elder removed frae Aiblinnoch wi’ his wife, but no’ till he had effected a change of meenesters.”
It was already past midnight, and the party had dropped off one by one, with the exception of Deeside, Macquoich, the young Englishman, and a Scotch laird, who were playing poker–an amusement which he understood they frequently protracted until three in the morning. It was nearly time for him to expect his mysterious visitant. Before he went upstairs he thought he would take a breath of the outer evening air, and throwing a mackintosh over his shoulders, passed out of the garden door of the billiard-room. To his surprise it gave immediately upon the fringe of laurel that hung over the chasm.