Miss McTavish sent for Mr. Traquair. He went to her with a heavy
conscience, for as yet he had done nothing toward raising the ten
pounds. At her first words his conscience became still more laden.
"Traquair," she said, "you mustn't tell him yet."
It was all Traquair could do to keep countenance. "Then it's fortunate I
haven't," said he, "for you gave me a free hand."
"Consider it tied behind your back for the present, for a wonderful
thing is going to happen."
"Indeed," said Traquair.
"You wouldn't believe me when I tell you that the silly man is going to
fall in love with me, and ask me to marry him!"
"Although you haven't offered me a chair, my dear," said Traquair, "I
will take one."
All in a burst then, half laughing, half in a grave kind of excitement,
she told her old friend how she had played housekeeper first at Brig
O'Dread and later at Beem-Tay. And how, on the latter occasion, McTavish
had displayed his admiration so openly that there could be but the
one climax.
"And after all," she concluded, "if he thinks I'm just a housekeeper,
and falls in love with me and asks me to marry him--I'd know the man
was sincere--wouldn't I, Traquair?"
"It seems to me," said Traquair, "that I have never seen you so
thoroughly delighted with yourself."
"That is unkind. It is a wonderful thing when a girl of position, and
hedged in as I have been, finds that she is loved for herself alone and
not for her houses and lands, and her almost royal debts."
"Verra flattering," said Traquair, "na doot. And what answer will you
give?"
"Traquair," she said, "I'm not a profane girl; but I'm hanged if I
know."
"He is a very wealthy man, and I have no doubt a very kind and honest
man."
"He is a very cheeky man," smiled Miss McTavish.
"No doubt--no doubt," said Traquair; "and it would leave you to the
honest enjoyment of your houses and lands, which otherwise you propose
to hand over to him. Still, it is well for a Scot to be cautious."
"For a Scotch Scot," said Miss McTavish. "I should be an American Scot
if I married him. He tells me they are noted for their daring."
While they were thus animatedly conversing, word came that Mr. McTavish
had called in the hope of seeing Miss MacNish.
"There," said Miss McTavish, "you see! Go down to him, Traquair, and be
pleasant, until I come. Then vanish."
Traquair found McTavish smoking a thick London cigarette upon the steps
of the side entrance, and gazing happily into a little garden of dark
yew and vivid scarlet geraniums with daring edgings of brightest
blue lobelia.
"Will you be making any changes," asked Traquair, "when you come into
your own?"
McTavish looked up with a smile and handed his open cigarette case to
the older man.
"Mr. Traquair," he said, "I'm young and a stranger. I wish you could
find it in your heart to be an uncle to me."
Traquair accepted a cigarette and sat down, first assuring himself that
the stone steps were dry.
"If I were your nephew," said McTavish, "and came to you all out of
breath, and told you that I wished to marry Miss McTavish's housekeeper,
what would you say?"
"I would say," said Traquair, "that she was the daughter of a grand
family that had fallen from their high estate. I would say, 'Charge,
nephew, charge!'"
"Do you mean it!" exclaimed McTavish.
"There's no more lovely lass in the United Kingdom," said Traquair,
"than Miss--Miss--"
"MacNish," McTavish helped him; "and she would be mistress where she
had been servant. That's a curious twist of fate."
"You have made up your mind, then," said Traquair, "to claim your own?"
"By no means--yet," said McTavish. "I was only speculating. It's all in
the air. Suppose uncle, that Miss MacNish throws me down!"
"Throws you down!" Traquair was shocked.
"Well," said McTavish humbly, "you told me to charge."
"To charge," said Traquair testily, "but not to grapple."
"In my country," said McTavish, "when a girl refuses to marry a man they
call it throwing him down, giving him the sack, or handing him a lemon."
"Yours is an exceptional country," said Traquair.
Miss MacNish appeared in the doorway behind them. "I'm sorry to have
been so long," she said; "I had to give out the linen for luncheon."
McTavish flung away his cigarette, and sprang to his feet as if some one
had stuck a pin into him. Traquair, according to the schedule, vanished.
"It seemed very, very long," said McTavish.
"Miss McTavish," said Miss MacNish, "has consented to see you."
"Good Heavens!--when?"
"Now."
"But I don't want to see her _now_."
"But you told me"--Miss MacNish looked thoroughly puzzled--"you told me
just what you were going to say to her. You said it was all
predestined."
"Miss MacNish, it was not Miss McTavish I was thinking of--I'm sure it
wasn't. It was you."
"Are you proposing to me?" she asked.
"Of course, I am. Come into the garden--I can't talk on these steps,
right on top of a gravel walk with a distant vista of three gardeners
and a cartful of sand."
"I must say," said Miss MacNish, "that this is the suddenest thing that
ever happened to me."
"But you said you believed in love at first sight," McTavish explained.
"You knew yesterday what had happened to me--don't say you didn't,
because I saw you smiling to yourself. You might come into the garden
and let me say my say."
She didn't budge.
"Very well then. I will make a scene--right here--a terrible scene." He
caught her two hands in his, and drew her toward him so that the keys at
her belt jangled and clashed.
"This is preposterous!" she exclaimed.
"Not so preposterous as you think. But what's your first name?"
"I think I haven't any at the moment."
"Don't be ridiculous. There--there--"
She tore her hands from him and struck at him wildly. But he ducked
like a trained boxer.
"With everybody looking!" she cried, crimson with mortification.
"I had a cable," he said, "calling me back to America. That is why I
have to hurry over the preliminaries."
"The preliminaries," she cried, almost in tears. "Do you know who I am
that you treat me like a barmaid?"
"Ladies," said McTavish, "who masquerade as housekeepers ought to know
what to expect."
Her face was a blank of astonishment. "Traquair told," she said
indignantly. "Wait till I--"
"No," said McTavish; "the porter at Brig O'Dread told. He said that you
yourself would show me the chapel. He said not to be surprised if you
pretended to be some one else. He said you had done that kind of thing
before. He seemed nettled about something."
In spite of herself Miss McTavish laughed. "I told him," she said, "that
if you crossed my hand with silver, I would give it to him; but if you
crossed my hand with gold, I would keep it for myself. That made him
furious, and he slammed the door when he left. So you knew all along?"
"Yes--Mrs. Nevis MacNish McTavish, I did; and when you had the faint
spell in the chapel, I almost proposed then. I tell you, your voice and
your face, and the way you walked--oh, they did for this young man on
the spot! Do you know how much hunger and longing and loving can be
crowded into a few days? I do. You think I am in a hurry? It seems to me
as if there'd been millions of years of slow waiting."
"I have certainly played the fool," said Miss McTavish, "and I suppose I
have let myself in for this." Her voice was gentler. "Do you know, too,
why I turned white in the chapel?"
"Yes," he said, "I know that."
"Traquair told you."
"Yes."
"And if you hadn't liked me this way, would you have turned me out of
house and home?"
He drew her hand through his arm, and they crossed the gravel path into
the garden. "What do _you_ think?" he asked.
"I think--no," said she.
"Thank you," said he. "Do you read Tennyson?"
"No," said she, "Burns."
McTavish sighed helplessly. Then a light of mischief came into his eye.
"As _Burns_ says," said he:
"'If you are not the heiress born,
And I,' said he, 'the lawful heir,
We two will wed to-morrow morn,
And you shall still be Lady Clare,'"
"I love every word Burns wrote," she said enthusiastically, and
McTavish, though successful, was ashamed.
"McTavish," she said, "the other day, when I felt that I had to get here
before you, I promised my driver ten pounds if he beat your car,"
"Yes," said McTavish, "I guessed what was up, and told my man to go
slower. It wasn't the psychological moment for either of us to break our
necks, was it?"
"No; but I promised the man ten pound, McTavish--and I hay'na got it."
"Ten pounds ought to have a certain purchasing power," said he.
"Then shut your eyes," she commanded.
"And after all," she said, "you'll be _The_ McTavish, won't you?"
"I will not," he said. "Do you think I'm going to take you back to
America with me Saturday, and have all my friends in New York point
their fingers at me, and call me--_The_?"