Christian was late, as Callander had prophesied, and when he entered at last it was with a double apology.
“You’ll think me frightfully rude, of course, and I’m wretchedly ashamed, but I was unexpectedly detained; and to make matters worse, I’m afraid I shall have to go down into the village, later on. I suppose you wouldn’t care to come along?—a wrestling-match, you know—some of your men are down,—yes, yes, you’d rather stop here, of course—I quite understand! I seem to have made a muddle of things, somehow—I’ve rather a knack that way,” he added, with a sudden little laugh, at which Nettie looked up quickly.
Something had happened, she knew, upstairs in that detestable little room which had never harboured anything but trouble; something that had sent Deborah away without a word to herself, and set that hurt, puzzled look in Christian’s kind eyes. To-morrow she would find out, and by hook or crook things should be put right; but to-night was her night, and she could spare no thought for any one else. The gale had set her blood racing in her veins—wild blood that came through a questionable pedigree from lawless Border thieves of the North; and the interview with Roger Lyndesay had carried her back with a rush to the happy days of her early girlhood, when she and Dixon were stepping on the borderland of love, and the shadow of Crump was far enough from their young glamour. The old man’s courtly action had given her back her self-respect as nothing else could have done, setting her free, it seemed, for the future. For the second time she shook off her dead husband’s clasp, and deliberately took her life in both hands, calling on the gods of field and fold.
Dinner was a rapid meal, and when the ladies rose, the men followed very shortly. Rishwald drew Nettie to the piano, but though she played when he asked her, she would not sing, for in her ears was a rioting song of hope and fear, so tempestuous that she marvelled others could not hear it. His head swam as he bent over her flushed cheek and shining gown, hungering for some response to his passion, and nearer complete abstraction from self than he had ever been in his life, or would be again.
Christian sat by the fire, sunk in a deep chair, his face hidden in a cloud of smoke. Near him, his mother bent closely over a fine square of lace, her thin, powerful fingers moving lightly among the threads. They never looked at each other—these two. The veil of bitterness between them was stretched to-night as far as the stars.
“If you would give us a week at Whyterigg,” Rishwald was saying quite humbly, “I should be honoured to arrange an old-time concert in the musician’s gallery. A harpsichord—viola da gamba, and so on—the musicians in costume, of course. Does the idea please you?”
He bent nearer, and at that moment a bell rang, far at the back of the house. Nettie started violently, her hands dropping from the keys, and she half-rose, looking at the stairs, but before she could move, one of the men entered with the message that Anthony Dixon wished to see Mrs. Stanley.
Slinker’s wife came out from behind the piano.
“Bring him here, please,” she said quickly. “I will see him here. That is, if you will excuse me!” she added, turning apologetically to her hosts.
“My dear Nettie!” Mrs. Lyndesay’s eyebrows went up in cold disapproval. “If you must see the man—and surely it cannot be necessary, at this hour?—the hall is scarcely the place for an interview. The steward’s room, Matthew, or the east parlour.”