"Perhaps your fair cheek has become sacred since that beggarly little rival of mine saluted it? It is a capital joke, is it not?"
"Perhaps," said Flora, reddening, and rising to withdraw; "and what then?"
"If so, I would say you were as great an idiot as my old grandmother Grizel Kennedy, of Kilhenzie, was."
"Respectful to her and polite to me! And she——"
"After Prince Charles Edward kissed her at the Holyrood ball, she never permitted the lips of mortal man—not even those of my worthy grandfather Cosmo, Lord Rohallion, K.T., and so forth, to salute her, lest the charm of the royal kiss should be broken; and their married life extended over some forty years and more."
At this apocryphal story, which has been told of more old ladies in Scotland than Grizel of Rohallion, Flora laughed heartily, as well she might; and her merriment made the Master excessively provoked.
"We are, I hope, at least friends?" said he, presenting his hand with great but grim suavity.
"Oh yes, Cosmo, the best of friends—do excuse my laughing so; but nothing more, remember, nothing more," she replied, and withdrawing her hand, which he attempted to kiss, she darted through the labyrinth towards the house, leaving "Marmion" forgotten on the gravel behind her.
"By Jove! to be baffled, laughed at, and by a chick like this!" muttered Cosmo with an oath which we care not to record, as he gave the volume a kick, and strode angrily away, full of bitter and dark thoughts, and inspired with rage at a rivalry which, in truth, he was ashamed to acknowledge, even to himself.