"Aleck!" some of his cronies said. "He's a card!"
He had, for such girls as were not frightened by his beard and his position, a queer, provocative glint in his eye, which they would savor and giggle at.
"He 's a pleasant fellow, Mr. Robertson," they agreed. "He could be fine and pleasant to a girl he liked, I 'll warrant you! They do say—" and here some immaterial scandal was told.
It was strange how he ran across Jean Lindsay, for he made it a rule to have nothing to do socially—if one could call it socially—with the girls in the mill. He had noticed her a few times about the place—a stately sort of girl with calm brow and eyes. He admired the fine figure she had—the shapely arms and rich bosom. A woman, that! None of your fragile dolls! And twice he had seen her leave the works at quitting time, a figure in a Paisley shawl and skirt and blouse, none of the cheap finery of the mill worker.
"Yon 's a fine girl!" he thought, and forgot her.
It was one night on Cave Hill he discovered her again, a soft June night with a half-moon in the sky. He had been out for a tramp and sat down to watch the city beneath him. He heard a rustle in the heather beside him. He got up immediately.
"I beg your pardon." He noticed suddenly a girl looking at him, seated not ten yards away. "I did n't know there was any one here."
"It's all right, Mr. Robertson." The voice was calm and self-possessed as that of any woman of the great world. He had to look a few instants before he recognized her.
"You 've seen me at the works," she explained.
"Why, of course I have," he remembered. "What are you doing here all alone?"