Standing by the great window soon after my arrival, a bit removed from a group of talking persons to whom I was giving but scant attention, I became conscious that some one was addressing me, and turned to find the Duke of Borthwicke, his hand laid lightly on my shoulder, his countenance of baffling serenity, and his voice mellow and of a conciliating quality. He wore gray satin of an elegant finish, but neither embroidery nor jewels, and, notwithstanding his position and power, conveyed the impression in some adroit way, subtler than I can set forth, that he deprecated his temerity in addressing so austere a person as myself. I had seen women use this essence of flattery, but it was the first time I ever found it employed by a man.
"Will my Lord Stair allow me to introduce myself to him?" he inquired, with a smile, extending his hand. "I am John Montrose, and there are many reasons why we should determine to be good friends."
"We are both Highland folk," I answered.
"Which is one excellent reason," he interrupted; "yet there are several more moving than that. Your father, Lord Stair, and mine were out together in the forty-fives, on which side I need scarcely mention; and again, your grandfather and mine both loved and fought for the beautiful Nancy Hamilton, and, but for the preference of the lady herself, she might have been my own grandmother. These things call for a friendly feeling between us, Lord Stair, but that which drives me forward most to your acquaintancy is the admiration I have for the writings of your daughter, Mistress Nancy, whose lines ring through my head more often than I care to tell, and whose poems have been upon my writing-table ever since they were published."
In this pleasant way we fell to talk of Nancy, of her gifts, her beauty, her loving tenderness for all things, her strange up-bringing, her people on the Burnside; and to a doting father such as I was the time flew quickly by.
I noted at length that there was some stir in the circle around her, and watched her cross the room with her Grace of Gordon and Danvers Carmichael in attendance, to the musicians' place in the great window.
I have wondered at times if folk who dwell on the temptations male creatures have think ever of those which come to women of great attractiveness to men. The thought came to me as Nancy took her place beside the harp and violins, which were to accompany her singing, and I sent a prayer to Heaven to keep my child unspotted from the world, uttering it none the less fervently because his Grace of Borthwicke, with lids veiling the fire of his eyes, was looking at her.
Twice she sang, her songs being of her own land, one of the highlands, with the perfume of the gorse and the heather in the lilt of it, and the second, by demand of Sandy, the gipsy song which had been handed down from woodland mother to woodland child for hundreds of years; a song which sent Nancy's lawless blood to her cheeks and set her heart beating with an inherited remembrance of raids and sea-fights, and lawless loves; which made her eyes misty with tears and unawakened passion; the song which I had learned to dread, Marian's song:
"Love that is Life,
Love that is Death,