And Blanche Galloway became disagreeably surprised when she learned on what 'friendly terms' the sisters were with those two gentlemen, who as visitors at Craigmhor she had rather been disposed to consider as her own peculiar property.
Robert Wodrow was there too, not to enjoy himself, but to watch Sir Redmond and Ellinor, as the latter could read only too distinctly in his lowering and upbraiding yet tender eyes, though he affected to converse gaily with Colville and others.
'Let me get you some iced champagne cup,' said Sir Redmond, in a low voice, as he offered Ellinor his arm and led her away, adding, with one of his unpleasant laughs, 'Here is old Dr. Wodrow, with his Sabbath-day smile, and his wife, in her awful toilette—our sulking friend the son too. They have been among the first to come, and will be the last to go away—like all stupid people. How like fish out of the water they look!'
Ellinor, to do her justice, felt a swelling in her throat at these remarks on those she had been so long accustomed to view as her dearest friends, and fanned herself almost angrily.
'And how is Jack, that surliest of curs, who always snaps and snarls at me as if I were a tramp or a beggar?' asked Sir Redmond.
Ellinor laughed now, and soon found herself chatting away with the glib Sir Redmond as if she had known him not only a few days, but a few years. How different he was in his fluency of speech, his perfect tone of manner and softness of voice, from Robert Wodrow.
Poor Robert Wodrow!
'What smooth tongues these southron fellows have,' he was thinking, savagely, as his eyes followed the pair; 'and how she seems to listen to him, drinking in every word, like a moonstruck fool!'
And already he felt all the tortures of jealousy, 'the injured lover's hell.'
A suspicion that he was watched or suspected by Colville, after the latter's very distinct and open warning, inspired Sir Redmond Sleath with a secret emotion of revenge against him—a curiously mingled hatred and desire to triumph in his love affair with Ellinor; and since that warning had been given a coolness had ensued between the baronet and the guardsman—a coolness that outlasted their visit to Lord Dunkeld.