He was not then expecting a visit; he was going to pay one! Hence the sentinel before the outer door, that his absence might not be known. Ewen looked at the cloak on the bed, thought of the dark Edinburgh streets, the hundred and one narrow little entries, the chance of a scuffle, of an encounter with some unexpected patrol from the Castle, and took the plunge.
“Your Royal Highness is going out—at this hour?”
The Prince spun round. “Who told you that I was going out? And if I were, what possible affair is it of yours, sir?”
“Only that, as your aide-de-camp, it is my great privilege to watch over your Royal Highness’s person,” answered Ewen respectfully but firmly. “And if you are going out into the streets of Edinburgh at night without a guard——”
Charles Edward came nearer. His brown eyes, striking in so fair-complexioned a young man, sparkled with anger. “Captain Cameron, when I appointed you my aide-de-camp, I did not think that I was hampering myself with a s——” He bit off the short, pregnant word, that aide-de-camp’s suddenly paling face evidently recalling to him whither he was going. But he instantly started off again on the same road. “Dieu me damne!” he said irritably, “am I to have your clan always at my elbow? Lochiel may have walked first into Edinburgh, but he was not the first to declare for me. He sent his brother to beg me to go back again! I think you Camerons would do well to remem——” Again he broke off, for there had come a knock at the door.
But Ewen, white to the very lips, had put his hand behind him and turned the key. “Will your Royal Highness kindly give your orders to some other man?” he asked, in a voice which he did not succeed in keeping steady. “I’ll not endure to hear either my Chief or myself insulted, no, not though it be by my future King!”
The Prince was brought up short. His aide-de-camp might have taken upon himself a good deal more than his position warranted, but to offend a chieftain of Clan Cameron at this juncture was madness. Charles was not yet a slave to the petulant temper which from his boyhood had given anxiety to those about him, and which in later unhappy years was to work so much disaster, and his great personal charm was still undimmed.
“Wait a little!” he called through the door, and then looked with appeal in his beautiful eyes at the tall figure in front of it, rigid with the stillness of a consuming anger. “Ardroy, forgive me for a moment of irritation! I scarce knew what I was saying. You cannot think that there is any thought in my breast for my good Lochiel but gratitude—all the greater gratitude that he knew and weighed the risk he ran and yet drew that true sword of his! And as for you, how did I insult you?”
“I think,” said Ewen, still very pale and haughty, and using to the full the physical advantage which he had—not very many had it—of being able to look down on his Prince, “I think that your Royal Highness was near calling me . . . something that no gentleman can possibly call another.”
“Why, then, I could not have been near it—since I hope I am a gentleman!” The Prince smiled his vanquishing smile. “And to prove that you are imagining vain things, my dear Ardroy, I will tell you on what errand I am bound to-night, and you shall accompany me, if you still insist upon your right to watch over my royal person.”