CHAPTER VI.
SHAFTO'S HORIZON BECOMES CLOUDY.
The Major had gone to the 'little dinner' at the desire of Kippilaw, but unwillingly; he had evidently heard something about Shafto—knew him by reputation, and during the meal had treated him perhaps rather cavalierly, which Shafto was too self-assertive or too 'thick-skinned' to perceive, though Kippilaw did.
The little W.S., who had never been in a 'scrimmage' since he left the High School, was desperately scared by the whole affair, and especially by the mauling given to Shafto, the son of a client of the firm, the heir of Lord Fettercairn, by the Major, who made very light of the matter, and called him 'a d——d cad, and worse than a cad.'
When Shafto gathered himself up they were gone, and he heard their footsteps echoing in the now silent square (where the tall column stood up snowy white in the light of the waning moon) as they turned westward along George Street, and a feeling closely akin to that of murder gathered in his heart as he poured the most horrible maledictions on the Major, and drank a deep draught of foaming Pommery-greno, well laced with brandy.
That fellow had spoiled his game, and his nefarious plans against young Kippilaw, whom he regarded as a wealthy pigeon to pluck. No good ever came of a quiet third party watching one's play. He would be even with the Major yet, he muttered, as he ground his teeth; but how? The Major had carried off the loaded dice, and after splitting it open, as doubtless he would, exposure everywhere was sure to follow.
He was wrong in one supposition, however, as the Major quitted Edinburgh next morning for Drumshoddy Lodge, and, of course, would be very unlikely to expose in public one whom he deemed a connection of his own.
Intending to attribute the whole affair of the loaded dice—alleged to be loaded, he would insist—to a tipsy brawl on the Major's part, to a mistake or confusion, and carry it off somehow, Shafto, driven to desperation by want of money on one hand, even to settle his hotel bill in St. Andrew Square, and by some days of terrible doubt and depression on the other, after writing a private note to Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw about his affairs, and fixing an hour for a visit 'thereanent,' ventured to present himself at that gentleman's chambers, where a shock awaited him.
As he passed through the hall, he saw Madelon—Madelon Galbraith—seated in a waiting-room.
'Madelon here—for what purpose?' thought he, with growing anxiety, as he was ushered into the presence of Mr. Kippilaw, who received him with intense frigidity—even more than frigidity—as he barely accorded him a bow, and neither offered his hand nor rose from his writing-table, but silently pointed to a chair with his pen.
Despite this cold welcome, Shafto's constitutional insolence of thought and bearing came to him with a sense of the necessity for action, for his grim reception by the usually suave and pleasant old lawyer roused all his wrath and spite to fever-heat.