Count Victor said _Au revoir_ to Doom Castle that afternoon.
Mungo had rowed him down by boat to the harbour and left him with his
valise at the inn, pleased mightily that his cares as garrison were to
be relieved by the departure of one who so much attracted the unpleasant
attention of nocturnal foes, and returned home with the easiest mind he
had enjoyed since the fateful day the Frenchman waded to the rock. As
for Count Victor, his feelings were mingled. He had left Doom from a
double sense of duty, and yet had he been another man he would have
bided for love. After last evening's uproar, plain decency demanded that
Jonah should obviate a repetition by removing himself elsewhere. There
was also another consideration as pregnant, yet more delicate: the
traditions of his class and family as well as his natural sense of
honour compelled his separation from the fascinating influence of the
ingenuous woman whose affections were pledged in another quarter. In
a couple of days he had fallen desperately in love with Olivia--a
precipitation that might seem ridiculous in any man of the world who
was not a Montaiglon satiated by acquaintance with scores of Dame
Stratagems, fair _intrigueuses_ and puppets without hearts below
their modish bodices. Olivia charmed by her freshness, and the simple
frankness of her nature, with its deep emotions, gave him infinitely
more surprise and thrill than any woman he had met before. “Wisdom
wanting absolute honesty,” he told himself, “is only craft: I discover
that a monstrous deal of cleverness I have seen in her sex is only
another kind of cosmetic daubed on with a sponge.”
And then, too, Olivia that morning seemed to have become all of a sudden
very cold to him. He was piqued at her silence, he was more than piqued
to discover that she too, like Mungo, obviously considered his removal a
relief.
Behold him, then, with his quarters taken in the Boar's Head Inn, whence
by good luck the legal gang of Edinburgh had some hours before departed,
standing in the entrance feeling himself more the foreigner than ever,
with the vexing reflection that he had not made any progress in the
object of his embassy, but, on the contrary, had lost no little degree
of his zest therein.
The sound of the flageolet was at once a blow and a salute. That
unaccomplished air had helped to woo Olivia in her bower, but yet it
gave a link with her, the solace of the thought that here was one she
knew. Was it not something of good fortune that it should lead him to
identify and meet one whose very name was still unknown to him, but with
whom he was, in a faint measure, on slight terms of confederacy through
the confession of Olivia and the confidence of Mungo Boyd?
“_Toujours l'audace!_” thought he, and he asked for the innkeeper's
introduction to the performer. “If it may be permitted, and the
gentleman is not too pressingly engaged.”
“Indeed,” said the innkeeper--a jovial rosy gentleman, typical of his
kind--“indeed, and it may very well be permitted, and it would not be
altogether to my disadvantage that his lordship should be out of there,
for the Bailies cannot very well be drinking deep and listening to Mr.
Simon MacTag-gart's songs, as I have experienced afore. The name?”
“He never heard it,” said Count Victor, “but it happens to be
Montaiglon, and I was till this moment in the odd position of not
knowing his, though we have a common friend.”
A few minutes later the Chamberlain stood before him with the end of the
flageolet protruding from the breast of his coat.
As they met in the narrow confine of the lobby--on either hand of them
closed rooms noisy with clink of drinking-ware, with laugh and jest and
all that rumour of carouse--Montaiglon's first impression was exceeding
favourable. This Chamberlain pleased his eye to start with; his manner
was fine-bred in spite of a second's confusion; his accent was cordial,
and the flageolet displayed with no attempt at concealment, captured the
heart of the Frenchman, who had been long enough in these isles to
weary of a national character that dare not surrender itself to any
unbusiness-like frisking in the meadows. And one thing more there was
revealed--here was the kilted gallant of the miniature in Olivia's
chamber, and here was the unfriendly horseman of the wood, here in fine
was the lover of the story, and the jealousy (if it was a jealousy) he
had felt in the wood, forgotten, for he smiled.
But now he was face to face with Olivia's lover, Count Victor discovered
that he had not the slightest excuse for referring to her who was the
only association between them! The lady herself and Mungo Boyd had
conveyed a sense of very close conspiracy between all four, but from
neither the lady nor any one else in Doom had he any passport to the
friendship of this gentleman. It was only for a moment the difficulties
of the situation mastered him.
“I have permitted myself, monsieur, to intrude upon you upon an
excuse that must seem scandalously inadequate,” said he. “My name is
Montaiglon--”
“With the particle, I think?” said Sim MacTaggart.
Count Victor started slightly.
“But yes,” said he, “it is so, though I never march with much baggage,
and a De to a traveller is like a second hat. It is, then, that it is
perhaps unnecessary to say more of myself?”
The Chamberlain with much _bonhomie_ grasped his hand.
“M. Montaiglon,” said he, “I am very proud to meet you. I fancy a
certain lady and I owe something to your consideration, and Simon
MacTaggart stands upon no ceremony.”
Count Victor winced slightly at the conjunction, but otherwise he was
delighted.
“I am ravished, monsieur!” said he. “Ceremony is like some people's
assumption of dignity--the false bottoms they put in their boots to
conceal the fact that they are under the average height, is it not?”
Arm in arm they went out in front of the inn and walked along the bay,
and the Provost and the Bailies were left mourning for their king.
“You must not fancy the name and the reputation of the gentlemen of
Cammercy unknown in these parts,” said the Chamberlain. “When the
lady--who need not be more specifically mentioned--told me you had come
to Doom, it was like the over-come of a song at first that I had heard
of you before. And now that I see you, I mind the story went, when I was
at Dunkerque some years ago, that Count Victor Jean, if all his other
natural gifts had failed him, might have made a noble fortune as a
_maître d'escrime_. Sir, I am an indifferent hand with the rapier
myself, but I aye liked to see a man that was its master.”
“You are very good,” said Montaiglon, “and yet such a reputation,
exaggerated as I fear it may be, is not, by my faith! the one I should
desire under the circumstances that, as you have doubtless further
heard, bring me here.”
“About that, M. Montaiglon, it is perhaps as well that the Duke of
Argyll's Chamberlain should know nothing at all. You are a wild lot, my
gallant Jacobites”--he laughed softly as he spoke. “Between ourselves
I have been more than bottle friends with some lovable persons on
your side of the house, and you will be good enough to consider Simon
MacTaggart no politician, though the Duke's Chamberlain _ex officio_ is
bound to be enemy to every man who will not swear King George the best
of monarchs.”
“From what I know of affairs in Europe now, and for all our heroics
of invasion,” said Count Victor, “his Majesty is like to remain in
undisputed possession, and you may take my word for it, no affair of
high politics is responsible for my being here. Monsieur himself has
doubtless had affairs. I am seeking but for one man--”
“Drimdarroch,” said the Chamberlain. “So the lady told me. Our
Drimdarroch will not provide very much interest for a _maître
d'escrime_,” and he laughed as he pictured Petullo the writer shivering
before a flash of steel.
“Ah! you speak of the lawyer: Doom told me of him, and as he was good
enough to interest himself in my lodging in this place, I must make
him my compliments at the earliest and tell him I have settled down for
myself in the _auberge_.”
“To that much at least I can help you, though in the other affair
I'm neutral in spite of my interest in any ploy of the kind. There's
Petullo's house across the way; I'm on certain terms with him; if you
care, we could see him now.”
“_Le plus tôt sera le mieux!_” said Count Victor.
The Chamberlain led the way.