"Yes," answered his cousin. "I will show it to you some other time. It is in my baggage."
"I should like to see it much," said Sir George. "Now, tell me truly, Andrew, did you do nothing else than gaze? I know you well, my good cousin. You are gay and rash, have a somewhat evil opinion of all women, and believe that admiration, even when implying insult, must still have something pleasing in it for them. Did you add no words to the look?"
"Not one, upon my honour," replied his cousin, boldly.
"And no act either?" asked Sir George; and then seeing a sort of hectic glow come into his cousin's pale face, he added, quickly, "You did--I see it there--What was it?"
"I really do not know what right you have to tax me so," replied Andrew Ramsay, colouring still more.
"I will tell you," answered Sir George, in a calm, but stern tone. "You have told me some passages which have lately taken place, implying that you have been injured. Now, if wrong has been done my cousin, and the very consequences of that wrong prevent him from redressing it himself, I take up his quarrel as the head of his house. But I must first be sure that wrong has been done you. I must see the case clearly, and therefore I ask you what it was you did. Do not conceal anything from me, Andrew, for depend upon it I will know the whole, and that very soon."
The other grew white and red by turns, but his elder cousin had habitually great command over him, and he answered in a low and somewhat sullen tone, "I only pulled back the curtain of the carriage a little, to see her more plainly, nor should I have done that if it had not been rudely drawn in my face."
"So now we have the truth," said Sir George; "and I will tell you how I read your story, Andrew. You and some young companions--gay libertines, mayhap--in riding through the streets of Paris, met a carriage containing a young lady of great beauty. You stare rudely in, as I have seen you do a thousand times; the curtain is drawn to shut out an insolent gaze, and you pull it back again with a sort of coarse bravado. These are the plain facts of the case, I take it, and even by your own showing I cannot but see that Gowrie was quite right."
"You seem to have got his own story by heart, Sir George," replied his cousin, "and throw it somewhat unkindly in the teeth of a kinsman who, wounded, weak, and sick, comes to seek your hospitality."
"I am sorry for your wound, Andrew," said the knight, "and trust you may soon recover health and strength. As for the story, I have never heard one word of it but from your own lips. The writing was not very legible, but you cannot deny that I have managed to decipher it. And now let us change the subject a little. Who is this lady in whom Gowrie takes such an interest?"