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McLean did not correct her idea of the title. His expression was more carefully non-committal than ever, while behind its quiet guard his thoughts were breaking out like a revolution. Hamdi Bey.... A wedding reception.... The daughter of Tewfick Pasha.... In the secret depths of his soul he uttered profane and troubled words.
He now sat down again. "And you let them think that that Mr. McLean You dare not look me in the face and say that Mr. McLean did that last night!" "I reckon I dassent." "There! I knew it! I said so from the first!" "And me a stranger to you!" he murmured. It was his second broadside. It left her badly crippled. She was silent. "Who did yu' mention it to, ma'am?" She hoped she had him.
Freckles' eyes were filled with tears and his face quivering with feeling. "Dear Mr. McLean," he said, reaching with a caress over the Boss's black hair and his cheek. "Dear Boss, that's why I've wanted you so. I knew you would know. Now you will be looking at these? I don't want emeralds, because that's what she gave me." He pushed the green stones into a little heap of rejected ones.
And so, very unprepared for it, they moved toward the tragedy of the night. "Do you keep a light burning in the Lair?" McLean turned to ask, forgetting for the moment that it was not their domicile, but his. "No, there's no light," replied Corp, equally forgetful, but even as he spoke he stopped so suddenly that Elspeth struck against him. For he had seen a light.
"It will almost break me heart when the gang comes and begins tearing up the swamp and scaring away me chickens." "Then what is the trouble?" insisted McLean. "I think, sir, it's been books," answered Freckles. "You see, I didn't realize it meself until the bullfrog told me this morning. I hadn't ever even heard about a place like this. Anyway, I wasn't understanding how it would be, if I had.
McLean, and skulked out to the barrel. "Why, they claimed you weren't drinkin' this month!" said his friend, following. "Well, I am. Here's luck!" The two pledged in tin cups. "But I'm not waltzin' with her," blurted Mr. McLean grievously. "She called me an exception." "Waltzin'," repeated the Virginian quickly, and hearing the fiddles he hastened away.
And so enthusiastically did he dwell upon this theme in his next letter, that Miss Jessie McLean set herself devoutly to pray, either that Finlayson might soon be placed, or that the professors might cease giving parties. The brand of heresy almost invariably works ill to him who bears it.
The major said no more to Hatton on the subject of the interrupted interview; but on the second day, as McLean was lying languidly in his bed, listening to the sounds of hoofs and heels without, and bemoaning his fate that he was to be bedridden here when such stirring times were ahead, his soldier servant came noiselessly to ask the lieutenant's permission to step out a little while to see some friends in the cavalry.
"Oh, I couldn't hear what was said. He was the last in line and he stayed for some time. He said afterward that it was all right. She was very nice to him," said Jinny earnestly, producing every scrap of incident for McLean's judgment. "She showed him some of her presents something about her neck." In mid-speech McLean changed a startled "God!" to "Good!"
Then he recalled Miss Forrest's trenchant words; he remembered the white face that came back from the peep into the empty hall. Was McLean the man "nearer her own years" who had already found a lodgement in her heart?
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