"'Slife! A story for a play. And what then?" cried Pink-and-White.

"Why then--enter Mr. Montagu with a 'Stay, villain!' It chanced that young Don Quixote was walking through the streets for the cooling of his blood mayhap, much overheated by reason of deep play. He saw, he followed, at a fitting time he broke into the apartment of the lady. Here Sir Robert discovered them----"

"The lady all unready, alackaday!" put in the Honourable Isabel, from behind a fan to hide imaginary blushes.

"Well, something easy of attire to say the least," admitted Lady Di placidly.

"I' faith then, Montagu must make a better lover than Sir Robert," cried March.

"Every lady to her taste. And later they fought on the way to Surrey. Both wounded, no graves needed. The girl nursed Montagu back to health, and they fled to France together," concluded the narrator.

"And the lady--is she such a beauty?" queried Beauclerc.

"Slidikins! I don't know. She must have points. No Scotch mawkin would draw Sir Robert's eye."

You are to imagine with what a burning face I sat listening to this devil's brew of small talk. What their eyes said to each other of innuendo, what their lifted brows implied, and what they whispered behind white elegant hands, was more maddening than the open speech. For myself, I did not value the talk of the cats at one jack straw, but for this young girl sitting so still beside me-- By Heaven, I dared not look at her. Nor did I know what to do, how to stop them without making the matter worse for her, and I continued to sit in an agony grizzling on the gridiron of their calumnies. Had they been talking lies outright it might have been easily borne, but there was enough of truth mixed in the gossip to burn the girl with the fires of shame.

At the touch of a hand I turned to look into a face grown white and chill, all the joy of life struck out of it. The girl's timorous eyes implored me to spare her more of this scene.

"Oh Kenneth, get me away from here. I will be dying of shame. Let us be going at once," she asked in a low cry.

"There is no way out except through the crowd of them. Will you dare make the attempt? Should I be recognized it may be worse for you."

"I am not fearing if you go with me. And at all events anything iss better than this."

There was a chance that we might pa.s.s through un.o.bserved, and I took it; but I was white-hot with rage and I dare say my aggressive bearing bewrayed me. In threading our way to the door I brushed accidentally against Mistress Westerleigh. She drew aside haughtily, then gave a little scream of recognition.

"Kenn Montagu, of all men in the world--and turned Quaker, too. Gog's life, 'tis mine, 'tis mine! The hundred guineas are mine. I call you all to witness I have taken the desperate highwayman. 'Tall, strong, and extremely well-looking; carries himself like a gentleman.' This way, sir,"

she cried merrily, and laying hold of my coat-tails began to drag me toward the men.

There was a roar of laughter at this, and the pink-white youth lounged forward to offer me a hand of welcome I took pains not to see.

"Faith, the lady has the right of it, Montagu. That big body of yours is worth a hundred guineas now if it never was before," laughed Selwyn.

"Sorry to disappoint the lady, but unfortunately my business carries me in another direction," I said stiffly.

"But Lud! 'Tis not fair. You're mine. I took you, and I want the reward,"

cries the little lady with the sparkling eyes.

Aileen stood by my side like a queen cut out of marble, turning neither to the right nor to the left, her head poised regally on her fine shoulders as if she saw none in the room worthy a look.

"This must be the baggage about which they fought. Faith, as fine a piece as I have seen," said Craven to March in an audible aside, his bold eyes fixed insolently on the Highland girl.

Aileen heard him, and her face flamed. I set my teeth and swore to pay him for that some day, but I knew this to be no fitting time for a brawl.

Despite me the fellow forced my hand. He planted himself squarely in our way and ogled my charge with impudent effrontery. Me he quite ignored, while his insulting eyes raked her fore and aft. My anger seethed, boiled over. Forward slid my foot behind his heel, my forearm under his chin. I threw my weight forward in a push. His head went back as though shot from a catapult, and next moment Sir James Craven measured his length on the ground. With the girl on my arm I pushed through the company to the door.

They cackled after me like solan-geese, but I shut and locked the door in their faces and led Aileen to her room. She marched up the stairs like a G.o.ddess, beautiful in her anger as one could desire. The Gaelic heart is a good hater, and 'twas quite plain that Miss Macleod had inherited a capacity for anger.

"How dare they? How dare they? What have I done that they should talk so?

There are three hundred claymores would be leaping from the scabbard for this. My grief! That they would talk so of my father's daughter."

She was superbly beautiful in her wrath. It was the black fury of the Highland loch in storm that leaped now from her eyes. Like a caged and wounded tigress she strode up and down the room, her hands clenched and her breast heaving, an impetuous flood of Gaelic pouring from her mouth.

For most strange logic commend me to a woman's reasoning, I had been in no way responsible for the scene down-stairs, but somehow she lumped me blindly with the others in her mind, at least so far as to punish me because I had seen and heard. Apparently 'twas enough that I was of their race and cla.s.s, for when during a pause I slipped in my word of soothing explanation the uncorked vials of her rage showered down on me. Faith, I began to think that old Jack Falstaff had the right of it in his rating of discretion, and the maid appearing at that moment I showed a clean pair of heels and left her alone with her mistress.

As I was descending the stairs a flunky in the livery of the Westerleighs handed me a note. It was from Antoinette, and in a line requested me to meet her at once in the summer-house of the garden. In days past I had coquetted many an hour away with her. Indeed, years before we had been lovers in half-earnest boy and girl fashion, and after that the best of friends. Grimly I resolved to keep the appointment and to tell this little worldling some things she needed much to know.

I found her waiting. Her back was turned, and though she must have heard me coming she gave no sign. I was still angry at her for her share in what had just happened and I waited coldly for her to begin. She joined me in the eloquent silence of a Quaker meeting.

"Well, I am here," I said at last.

"Oh, it's you." She turned on me, mighty cold and haughty. "Sir, I take it as a great presumption that you dare to stay at the same inn with me after attempting to murder my husband that is to be."

"Murder!" I gasped, giving ground in dismay at this unexpected charge.

"Murder was the word I used, sir. Do you not like it?"

"'Twas a fair fight," I muttered.

"Was it not you that challenged? Did you not force it on him?"

"Yes, but----"

"And then you dare to come philandering here after me. Do you think I can change lovers as often as gloves, sir? Or as often as you?"

"Madam, I protest----"

"La! You protest! Did you not come here to see me? Answer me that, sir!"

With an angry stamp of her foot.

"Yes, Mistress Westerleigh, your note----"

"And to philander? Do you deny it?"

"Deny it. Odzooks, yes! 'Tis the last thing I have in my mind," I rapped out mighty short. "I have done with women and their follies. I begin to see why men of sense prefer to keep their freedom."

"Do you, Kenn? And was the other lady so hard on you? Did she make you pay for our follies? Poor Kenn!" laughed my mocking tormentor with so sudden a change of front that I was quite nonplussed. "And did you think I did not know my rakeh.e.l.ly lover Sir Robert better than to blame you for his quarrels?"

I breathed freer. She had taken the wind out of my sails, for I had come purposing to give her a large piece of my mind. Divining my intention, womanlike she had created a diversion by carrying the war into the country of the enemy.

She looked winsome in the extreme. Little dimples ran in and out her peach-bloom cheeks. In her eyes danced a kind of innocent devilry, and the alluring mouth was the sweetest Cupid's bow imaginable. Laughter rippled over her face like the wind in golden grain. Mayhap my eyes told what I was thinking, for she asked in a pretty, audacious imitation of the Scotch dialect Aileen was supposed to speak,

"Am I no' bonny, Kenneth?"

"You are that, 'Toinette."

"But you love her better?" she said softly.

I told her yes.