“Poor child! poor child!” stammered she out; and, unable to control her emotion, she arose and left the room.
“Rickards was right; that artful minx has won them all over. It is high time to send her back to her own country, and, from the brief experience I have had of it, I’ll venture to say all her captivations there will not make many victims. Three o’clock already,” said he, with surprise, “and I had meant to be at Dalradern early.” He rung and ordered the carriage. It had been at the door for above an hour. Strange how the morning should have slipped over; had it been real business, what a deal he could have transacted in the time; but these little “peddling negotiations,” so he called them, ran away with a man’s time before he was aware of it. As he passed through the hall, he saw, through a partly open door, the two girls—they were seated at a table, with their heads bent over a map.
“Yea,” said Ada, “this is the way papa mentions; here is Marseilles, and here, if the sea be rough, is the road we shall have to travel, all along the coast, by Nice and Genoa. Oh, don’t you wish it may be bad weather, Kate?”
M’Kinlay bent his head, but could not catch the words she spoke.
“And I used to fancy you would like it all more than even I did myself,” said Ada, in a tone of reproach.
“It is your lot to enjoy everything, and to have everything to enjoy,” said Kate; “and mine is—no matter what it is—let us have a stroll in the garden.”
M’Kinlay had just time to move on ere they arose, and, passing out, he got into the carriage and drove away.
CHAPTER XXX. SCANDAL.
It was half-past four as Mr. M’Kinlay drove into the court-yard at Dalradern. Sir Within’s note had said four o’clock, an early dinner, and Sir Within himself could be seen, at an oriel window, watch in hand, as the carriage passed under the arched entrance. Now, though it was part of Mr. M’Kinlay’s usual tactics never to “cheapen himself,” he felt he might by possibility have erred on the opposite side on this occasion, and he prepared to make some excuses for his delay, the letters he had read, the replies he was forced to make, and such like.