"What for?" Sandy inquired.

"To protect her," he answered.

"Well," observed Sandy, dryly, "ye may as well go and be on hand in case there's need of help. Nancy," he added with a laugh, "won't need it. But you may be called in to protect the duke."

CHAPTER X

NANCY VISITS HIS GRACE OF BORTHWICKE

At the time of which I write John Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, Ardvilarchan, and Drumblaine, was the most noticed man in the Three Kingdoms, and held by many to be the greatest scoundrel in the politics of Europe. He was a picturesque and stately devil, tall, clean shaven, with fine features and d.a.m.nable light blue eyes with a baffling gleam in them. He had a singular grace in the use of his body, especially in the movement of his hands, which were markedly expressive and attractive; and whether drawn to him or not, one could deny neither his potency nor his distinction of bearing, which was one of race as well as breeding. The first view I ever had of him was in Parliament House, where I noted on the instant the magnificent carriage of his head and chest, his extraordinary pallor, and the strange eyes, reflecting the light from without rather than revealing anything within.

In London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, the tide of gossip overflowed with his name and carried in its current tales of his greatness, his cruelty, his lawless loves and his quick forgettings. It was libeled against him that he had magnetic power over all with whom he came in contact, bending them to his will by the sheer dominance of his presence. There was, I recall, a story rife that upon my Lord Thurlow's opposition to the bill for the restoration of the forfeited estates becoming known, it was the Duke of Borthwicke who was sent to treat with him concerning it, and immediately after this visit the bill pa.s.sed the House of Lords with small opposition.

It was whispered as well that Pitt himself was afraid of his Grace of Borthwicke, and was no match for the man, who had a peculiar power by reason of being unhampered either by truth or precedent. Blake, who was the duke's secretary in '84, told me at the club one night, that on one occasion his grace had needed some statistics to clinch an argument.

After investigation the statistics were found to disprove his point.

Upon this being presented to him, he remarked dryly, "Alter the statistics."

Ugly tales were abroad in all cla.s.ses of society concerning his life in India, his conduct in the Highlands, and his moral idiocy, but he held them under with a strong hand, and more than one hinted that he had eyes for the premiership.

Dressed for the evening, the duke was alone in his sitting-room, attending to his private correspondence, when he heard a rap at the door.

"Enter," he called, in a careless voice, thinking it one of his men.

Nancy lifted the latch and came forward into the room.

"The Duke of Borthwicke will pardon my intrusion, will he not?" she asked, "as well as my lack of courtesy? I was afraid his grace might refuse to see me if I were announced to him in the ordinary manner."

Montrose had been writing at an oaken table, on either side of which was a bracket of lights. At the sound of the voice he turned, and, at the sight of Nancy, he rose and stood looking at her as though she were an apparition.

Many times since, in her description of this interview, she told me that she received from him an impression as though he stretched forth his hand and touched her. She said, as well, that the erectness of his body and the fulness of his chest gave him the air of a conqueror who was invincible, while the pallor of his face and the glitter of his eye set him still further apart from anything usual.

It seemed a full minute that they stood thus taking notes openly of each other before she spoke again.

"I am Nancy Stair," she said quietly.

"Ah," the duke returned, coming forward with a smile, "the verse-maker?"

"I make verses," Nancy answered.

"Which have given me more pleasure than I have the power to tell," the duke responded with a bow.

"It is praise indeed, coming from John Montrose, who is no mean poet himself," Nancy said with a smile.

"I," the duke returned, "am no poet, Mistress Stair; but I have a 's.p.u.n.k enough of glee' to enjoy the gift of others."

"One might think who overheard us, my lord duke," Nancy broke in with a laugh and the light of humor in her eyes by which she could make another smile at any time, "that we were collegians having a critical discussion. It was not concerning poetry that I came to you to-night, your grace. It was to ask a favor."

"Pitcairn said you would come," the duke answered her blandly, taking out his watch and looking at it with a smile. "He said you would come before you went to the d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon's rout. He even named the exact time within a quarter of an hour."

"Mr. Pitcairn is a very wonderful man," Nancy returned.

"He's a poor hand at description," responded the duke, with a heat of admiration for her in his tone.

"It depends somewhat," said Nancy, "upon what he has the describing of." And in this speech the way women know how to belittle an enemy is clearly to be seen. "He can describe a barn to a farmer, a road to a surveyor, or a church to an architect, so that they fall into an ecstasy of admiration of his parts. When it comes to a woman it's a different matter. Mr. Pitcairn doesn't know a woman. He's not, rightly speaking, a man. As Mr. Carmichael says, 'He's just a head.'"

"It's a curious head," the duke answers, "a curious head and a very clear one."

"A clear head to prosecute; never to defend," Nancy responded; "which leads me to the cause of my visit. I have come to ask for the pardon of Timothy Lapraik."

The duke dropped his eyelids, and a strange light shone from under them.

"You compliment me, Mistress Stair, in thinking I have the power to undo that which was settled by the law of your country and a jury tried and true. I took no part in the affair; the prosecution was not mine; in a word, the thing is perhaps beyond my power, had I the desire to get him a pardon, which, however, I have not."

All this time neither had made any motion toward sitting down, but stood regarding each other, alert and watchful. It was Nancy Stair who took the first move. Coming over to the duke she put one of her hands on his breast and stood looking up at him out of those gray eyes of whose power she was not unconscious.

"My lord," she said, "I, who have had the handling of people much of my life, have learned to recognize power when I see it, and I see it in you. There's just naught you can't do that you set your mind to."

None ever claimed that in his relation with women the duke was afflicted with Pitcairn's trouble, and a blue heat came in his eye at her touch of him.

"You're not afraid of me, Nancy Stair?"

She looked up at him from under her eyelids and laughed.

"Not the least bit in the world, your grace."

"And ye think, mayhap, that just because ye're a beautiful woman--aye, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen--that ye can come to me and ask favors, thinking that I shall expect nothing in return?"

"What I have heard of you would lead me far from such conclusion,"

Nancy answered, with a smile.

He looked at her in silence, with an amused expression in his face.

"I like you," he said at length, and a dare-devil look came into his eyes, a look which showed at once his strength and his weakness. "I like your fearlessness as well as your honesty. I can mate your frankness by my own. I have long desired to know what is said of me, and have a mind to make a compact with you, if you will. I hear lies on every side. They are the stuff of which my daily bread is baked. Come,"

he cried, "a bargain between us. The naked truth which ye have heard concerning me in return for the pardon of Timothy Lapraik."

"It's a bargain between us, your grace."

"There will be no slurring over, no soft adjustments?"

"You need have no fear. If you knew me better you would not ask that,"

Nancy answered with a smile. "You shall have the unsoftened truth, so far as it is mine to speak."

The duke motioned her to a seat by the fire and stood opposite to her, changing the candles on the shelf above to throw the light full upon her face as she sat before the fire.

"'Tis an awkward position you put me in," Nancy laughed.