I was angry, not at her words, for I knew she did not mean them, but at my inability to see what the fascinating jade was driving at.
"Inconsiderate," she repeated firmly. "You'd be content to be introduced to the Prince with a great swathe of dirty, blood-stained linen round your head, regardless of how it reflected on me."
"Reflected on you?" I echoed blankly.
"Yes. We shouldn't match. I suppose dear old Bloggs was a bachelor?"
"He was," said I, resigning the contest in despair.
The doctor lived in a fair-sized stick-and-wattle house. He was a dapper little man, with a cleverish, weakling cast of face, and was all on the jump with the turn things had taken. He had just opened the door to us, and was eyeing us uncertainly, when the Colonel and the Chief, returning on foot from their inspection, having left their horses to be baited under the watchful eye of a Highlander, stopped beside us.
"Are you the doctor?" asked Margaret promptly, as if to forestall any backing out on my part. If I could have joyed at anything, I should have been overjoyed at her keenness in having me seen to.
"Yes," he said, but very softly.
"Then please attend to this gentleman's wound," she said.
"Is he a rebel?" he asked, so loudly that he might have been talking to some one across the street, and instinctively I turned round There, sure enough, was the parson, a pasty, pursy, mean-looking rogue, coming across to see what was doing.