Sitting before the table was Danvers Carmichael, the cards spread before him, making a solitaire, and at a little distance, holding the bridle of his gray horse, stood the Duke of Borthwicke, who, I judge, had interrupted by his entrance a morning talk between Danvers and Nancy. There was a peculiar gleam in the eyes of Montrose, and a jaunty self-possession which became him well, as he stood and looked down at the man whose temper he had surely tried to the breaking point.
"'Tis a lonesome game you play, Mr. Carmichael," he said, with a significance in his tone which the printed words can not convey.
"There are times when I prefer lonesomeness to the only company available," Danvers returned, and he raised his eyes from the cards and looked Montrose full in the eye as he said it.
"Ah," the duke murmured, and there was a shadow of a smile around his lips, "'tis fortunate to be so pliable. For myself I prefer to play a game with a partner. In fact, the solitariness of my life has been such that I have thought to change it. To be frank with you, I am thinking of marriage."
"The Three Kingdoms will be interested," Danvers returned suavely.
Again the duke smiled. "You compliment me," he said, with a bow. "It all depends on the lady now. There is for me no longer any power of choice; for I think none could see her but to love her," and here he raised his hat with something of a theater's gallantry. "It is Mistress Stair, of course, of whom I speak."
Dandy Carmichael was on his feet in a minute.
"It is but fair to you, your Grace of Borthwicke, to tell you that Mistress Nancy Stair is already bespoken."
"Indeed?" said the duke. "And whom shall I believe? The lady herself denies it."
"She has promised that if she sees none within the year whom she likes better she will be my wife."