She sat so near that I could not see her. You may guess I lost every game.
"Tut! tut! Hillary dear, 'tis a poor helper Ramsay gained when he asked your hand. Pish! pish!" he added, seeing our faces crimson; "come away," and he carried me off to the dispensary, as though his preserved reptiles would be more interesting than Hortense.
With an indifference a trifle too marked, he brought me round to the fur trade and wanted to know whether I would be willing to risk trading without a license, on shares with a partner.
"Quick wealth that way, Ramsay, an you have courage to go to the north. An it were not for Hortense, I'd hire that young rapscallion of a Gillam to take me north."
I caught his drift, and had to tell him that I meant to try my fortune in the English court.
But he paid small heed to what I said, gazing absently at the creatures in the jars.
"'Twould be devilish dangerous for a girl," he muttered, pulling fiercely at his mustache.
"Do you mean the court, sir?" I asked.
"Aye," returned the doctor with a dry laugh that meant the opposite of his words. "An you incline to the court, learn the tricks o' the foils, or rogues will slit both purse and throat."
And all the while he was smiling as though my going to the court were an odd notion.