THE MORNING LIGHT
In the morning Sholto MacKim had other views of it. Even when at last
he was relieved from duty he never closed an eye. The blowing out of
the lamp had turned his ideas and hopes all topsy-turvy. His heart
sang loud and turbulent within him. He had kissed other girls indeed
before at kirns and country dances. He laughed triumphantly within him
at the difference. They had run into corners and screamed and
struggled, and held up ineffectual hands. And when his lips did reach
their goal, it was generally upon the bridge of a nose or a tip of an
ear. He could not remember any especial pleasure accompanying the
rite.
But this! The bolt of an arbalast could not have given him a more
instant or tremendous shock. His nerves still quivered responsive to
the tremulous yielding of the lips he had touched for a moment in the
dark of the doorway. He felt that never could he be the same man he
had been before. Deep in his heart he laughed at the thought.
And then again, with a quick revulsion, the return wave came upon him.
"How, if she be as untouched as her beauty is fresh, has she learned
that skill in caressing?"
He paused to think the matter over.
"I remember my father saying that a wise man should always mistrust a
girl who kisses overwell."
Then again his better self would reassert itself.
"No," he would argue, tramping up and down the corridor, wheeling in
the short bounds of the turnpike head, and again returning upon his
own footsteps, "why should I belie her? She is as pure as the
air--only, of course, she is different to all others. She speaks
differently; her eyes are different, her hair, her hands--why should
she not be different also in this?"
But when Maud Lindesay met Sholto in the morning, coming suddenly upon
him as he stood, with a pale face and dark rings of sleeplessness
about his eyes, as he looked meditatively out upon the broad river and
the blue smoke of the morning campfires, there was yet another
difference to be revealed to him. He had expected that, like others,
she would be confused and bashful meeting him thus in the daylight,
after--well, after the volcanic extinguishing of the lamp.
But there she stood, dainty and calm under the morning sunshine, in
fresh clean gown of lace and varied whiteness, her face grave as a
benediction, her eyes deep and cool like the water of the castle well.
Sholto started violently at sight of her, recovered himself, and
eagerly held out both his hands.
"Maud," he said hoarsely, and then again, in a lower tone, "sweetest
Maud."
But pretty Mistress Lindesay only gazed at him with a certain reserved
and grave surprise, looking him straight in the face and completely
ignoring his outstretched hands.
"Captain Sholto," she said steadily and calmly, "the Lady Margaret
desires to see you and to thank you for your last night's care and
watchfulness. Will you do me the honour to follow me to her chamber?"
There was no yielding softness about this maiden of the morning hours,
no conscious droop and a swift uplifting of penitent eyelids, no
lingering glances out of love-weighted eyes. A brisk and practical
little lady rather, her feet pattering most purposefully along the
flagged passages and skipping faster than even Sholto could follow
her. But at the top of the second stairs he was overquick for her. By
taking the narrow edges of the steps he reached the landing level with
his mistress.
His desire was to put out his hand to circle her lithe waist, for
nothing is so certainly reproductive of its own species as a first
kiss. But he had reckoned without the lady's mutual intent and favour,
which in matters of this kind are proverbially important. Mistress
Maud eluded him, without appearing to do so, and stood farther off,
safely poised for flight, looking down at him with cold, reproachful
eyes.
"Maud Lindesay, have you forgotten last night and the lamp?" he asked
indignantly.
"What may you mean, Captain Sholto?" she said, with wonderment in her
tone, "Margaret and I never use lamps. Candles are so much safer,
especially at night."