'Major Shargar, if you please. Give me all my honours, Robert,' said Moray, presenting his left hand.
'I congratulate you, my boy. Well, this is delightful! But you are wounded.'
'Bullet—broken—that's all. It's nearly right again. I'll tell you about it by and by. I am too full of something else to talk about trifles of that sort. I want you to help me.'
He then rushed into the announcement that he had fallen desperately in love with a lady who had come on board with her maid at Malta, where she had been spending the winter. She was not very young, about his own age, but very beautiful, and of enchanting address. How she could have remained so long unmarried he could not think. It could not be but that she had had many offers. She was an heiress, too, but that Shargar felt to be a disadvantage for him. All the progress he could yet boast of was that his attentions had not been, so far as he could judge, disagreeable to her. Robert thought even less of the latter fact than Shargar himself, for he did not believe there were many women to whom Shargar's attentions would be disagreeable: they must always be simple and manly. What was more to the point, she had given him her address in London, and he was going to call upon her the next day. She was on a visit to Lady Janet Gordon, an elderly spinster, who lived in Park-street.
'Are you quite sure she's not an adventuress, Shargar?'
'It's o' no mainner o' use to tell ye what I'm sure or no sure o', Robert, in sic a case. But I'll manage, somehoo, 'at ye sall see her yersel', an' syne I'll speir back yer ain queston at ye.'
'Weel, hae ye tauld her a' aboot yersel'?'
'No!' answered Shargar, growing suddenly pale. 'I never thocht aboot that. But I had no richt, for a' that passed, to intrude mysel' upo' her to that extent.'
'Weel, I reckon ye're richt. Yer wounds an' yer medals ought to weigh weel against a' that. There's this comfort in 't, that gin she bena richt weel worthy o' ye, auld frien', she winna tak ye.'
Shargar did not seem to see the comfort of it. He was depressed for the remainder of the day. In the morning he was in wild spirits again. Just before he started, however, he said, with an expression of tremulous anxiety,