"You have the loveliest hand," she went on, looking at his fingers, that certainly were shapely enough, as no one knew better than Simon Mac-Taggart. "I don't say you are in any way handsome,"--her eyes betrayed her real thought,--"but I'll admit to the hands,--they're dear pets, Sim."

He thrust them in his pockets.

"Heavens! Kate!" he protested in a low tone, and a.s.suming a quite unnecessary look of vacuity for the benefit of the husband, who gazed across the dim-lit room at them, "don't behave like an idiot; faithful wives never let their husbands see them looking like that at another man's fingers. What do you think of our monsher? He's a pretty enough fellow, if you'll not give me the credit."

"Oh, he's good enough, I daresay," she answered without looking aside a moment. "I would think him much better if he was an inch or two taller, a shade blacker, and Hielan' to boot. But tell me this, and tell me no more, Sim; where has your lordship been for three whole days? Three whole days, Simon MacTaggart, and not a word of explanation. Are you not ashamed of yourself, sir? Do you know that I was along the riverside every night this week? Can you fancy what I felt to hear your flageolet playing for tipsy fools in Ludovic's room? Very well, I said: let him!

I have pride of my own, and I was so angry to-night that I said I would never go again to meet you. You cannot blame me if I was not there to-night, Sim. But there!--seeing you have rued your cruelty to me and made an excuse to see me even before him, there, I'll forgive you."

"Oh! well!" drawled the Chamberlain, ambiguously.

"But I can't make another excuse this week. He sits in here every night, and has a new daft notion for late suppers. Blame yourself for it, Sim, but there can be no trysts this week."

"I'm a most singularly unlucky person," said the Chamberlain, in a tone that deaf love alone could fail to take alarm at.

"I heard a story to-day that frightened me, Sim," she went on, taking up some fine knitting and bending over it while she spoke rapidly, always in tones too low to carry across the room. "It was that you have been hanging about that girl of Doom's you met here."

The Chamberlain d.a.m.ned internally.

"Don't believe all you hear, Kate," said he. "And even if it was the case,"--he broke off in a faint laugh.

"Even if what?" she repeated, looking up.

"Even if--even if there was anything in the story, who's to blame? Your goodman's not the a.s.s he sometimes looks."

"You mean that he was the first to put her in your way, and that he had his own reasons?"

The Chamberlain nodded.

Mrs. Petullo's fingers rushed the life out of her knitting. "If I thought--if I thought!" she said, leaving the sentence unfinished.

No more was necessary; Sim MacTaggart thanked heaven he was not mated irrevocably.

"Is it true?" she asked. "Is it true of you, Sim, who did your best to make me push Petullo to Doom's ruin?"

"Now, my dear, you talk the d.a.m.nedest nonsense!" said Simon MacTaggart firmly. "I pushed in no way; the fool dropped into your husband's hands like a ripe plum. I have plenty of shortcomings of my own to answer for without getting the blame of others."

"Don't lie like that, Sim, dear," said Mrs. Petullo, decidedly. "My memory is not gone yet, though you seem to think me getting old. Oh yes!

I have all my faculties about me still."

"I wish to the Lord you had prudence; old Vellum's c.o.c.king his lugs."

"Oh, I don't care if he is; you make me desperate, Sim." Her needles thrust like poignards, her bosom heaved. "You may deny it if you like, but who pressed me to urge him on to take Drim-darroch? Who said it might be so happy a home for us when--when--my goodman there--when I was free?"

"Heavens! what a hangman's notion!" thought the Chamberlain to himself, with a swift side glance at this termagant, and a single thought of calm Olivia.

"You have nothing to say to that, Sim, I see. It's just too late in the day for you to be virtuous, laddie; your Kate knows you and she likes you better as you are than as you think you would like to be. We were so happy, Sim, we were so happy!" A tear dropped on her lap.

"Now heaven forgive me for my infernal folly!" cried out the soul of Sim MacTaggart; but never a word did he say aloud.

Count Victor, at the other end of the room, listening to Petullo upon wines he was supposed to sell and whereof Petullo was supposed to be a connoisseur, though as a fact his honest taste was b.u.t.termilk--Count Victor became interested in the other pair. He saw what it took younger eyes, and a different experience from those of the husband, to observe.

"Cognac,"--this to M. le Connoisseur with the rheumy eye--"but yes, it is good; your taste in that must be a national affair, is it not? Our best, the La Roch.e.l.le, has the name of a Scot--I think of Fife--upon the cask;" but to himself, with a glance again at the tragic comedy in the corner of the couch, "_Fi donc!_ Mungo had reason; my gentleman of the dark eye is suspiciously like _cavaliere servante_."

The Chamberlain began to speak fast upon topics of no moment, dreading the consequence of this surrender on the woman's part: she heard nothing as she thrust furiously and blindly with her needles, her eyes suffused with tears courageously restrained. At last she checked him.

"All that means, Sim, that it's true about the girl," said she. "I tried to think it was a lie when I heard it, but now you compel me to believe you are a brute. You are a brute, Sim, do you hear that? Oh G.o.d! oh G.o.d!

that ever I saw you! That ever I believed you! What is wrong with me, Sim? tell me, Sim! What is wrong with me? Am I different in any way from what I was last spring? Surely I'm not so old as all that; not a grey hair in my head, not a wrinkle on my face. I could keep like that for twenty years yet, just for love of Sim MacTaggart. Sim, say something, for the love of Heaven! Say it's a lie. Laugh at the story, Sim! Oh, Sim! Sim!"

The knitting needles clicked upon each other in her trembling hands, like fairy castanets.

"Who will say that man's fate is in his own fingers?" the Chamberlain asked himself, at the very end of patience. "From the day I breathed I got no chance. A clean and decent road's before me and a comrade for it, and I'm in the mood to take it, and here's the glaur about my feet! I wonder what monsieur there would do in a plight like mine. Lord! I envy him to be sitting there, and never a skeleton tugging at his sleeve."

Mrs. Petullo gulped a sob, and gave a single glance into his face as he stared across the room.

"Why do you hate that man?" she asked, suddenly.

"Who?" said he smiling, and glad that the wild rush of reproach was checked. "Is it monsher? I hate n.o.body, my dear Kate, except sometimes myself for sin and folly."

"And still and on you hate that man," said she convinced. "Oh no! not with that face, with the face you had a second ago. I think--oh! I can guess the reason; he has been up in Doom Castle; has he been getting round Miss Milk-and-Water? If he has, he's far more like her than you are. You made me pauperise her father, Sim; I'm sorry it was not worse.

I'll see that Petullo has them rouped from the door."

"Adorable Kate!" said the Chamberlain, ironically.

Her face flamed, she pressed her hand on her side.

"I'll not forget that, Sim," said she with a voice of marvellous calm, bracing herself to look indifferently across the room at her husband.

"I'll not forget many things, Sim. I thought the man I was to raise from the lackey that you were ten years ago would have some grat.i.tude. No, no, no, Sim; I do not mean that, forgive me. Don't look at me like that! Where are you to be to-morrow night, Sim? I could meet you at the bridge; I'll make some excuse, and I want you to see my new gown--such a gown, Sim! I know what you're thinking, it would be too dark to see it; but you could strike a light, sweetheart, and look. Do you mind when you did that over and over again the first time, to see my eyes? I'm not going to say another word about--about Miss Milk-and-Water, if that's what angers you. She could never understand my Sim, or love the very worm he tramps on as I do. Now look at me smiling; ain't I brave? Would any one know to see me that my heart was sore? Be kind to me, Sim, oh!

be kind to me; you should be kind to me, with all you promised!"

"Madame is smiling into a mist; alas! poor M. Petullo!" thought Count Victor, seeing the lady standing up and looking across the room.

"Kate," said the Chamberlain in a whisper, pulling un.o.bserved at her gown, "I have something to say to you."

She sat down again in a transport, her cheeks reddening, her eyes dancing; poor soul! she was glad nowadays of the very crumbs of affection from Sim MacTaggart's table.

"I know you are going to say 'Yes' for to-morrow night, Sim," said she triumphant. "Oh, you are my own darling! For that I'll forgive you everything."

"There's to be no more nonsense of this kind, Kate," said the Chamberlain. "We have been fools--I see that quite plainly--and I'm not going to carry it on any longer."

"That is very kind of you," said Mrs. Petullo, with the ring of metal in her accent and her eyes on fire. "Do you feel a great deal of remorse about it?"

"I do," said he, wondering what she was to be at next.

"Poor man! I was aye sure your conscience would be the death of you some day. And it's to be the pretext for throwing over unhappy Kate Cameron, is it?"

"Not Kate Cameron--her I loved--but Mrs. Petullo."

"Whom you only made-believe to? That is spoken like a true Highland gentleman, Sim. I'm to be dismissed with just that amount of politeness that will save my feelings. I thought you knew me better, Sim. I thought you could make a more plausible excuse than that for the dirty transaction when it had to be done, as they say it must be done some time with all who are in our position. As sure as death I prefer the old country style that's in the songs, where he laughs and rides away. But I'm no fool, Sim; what about Miss Milk-and-Water? Has she been hearing about me, I wonder, and finding fault with her new jo? The Lord help her if she trusts him as I did!"

"I want you to give me a chance, Kate," said the Chamberlain desperately. Petullo and the Count were still intently talking; the tragedy was in the poor light of a guttering candle.