| “Will be with you 4.30 today. | Lindsay.” |
So the witches’ caldron was a-boil, and none might tell what strange brew it would produce.
Lindsay came. Nancy had described him aptly. The British army seems to turn out a certain type of tall, straight, clean-limbed, and clear-eyed young officer as though he were cast in a mold. Power appraised him rightly at the first glance—a gentleman, who held honor dear and life cheap, a man of high lineage and honest mind, a Scot with a fox-hunting strain in him, a youngster who would put his horse at a shire fence or lead his company in a forlorn hope with equal nonchalance and determination—not, perhaps, markedly intellectual, but a direct descendant of a long line of cavaliers whose all-sufficing motto was, “God, and the King.”
The two had a protracted discussion. Power felt that he must win this somewhat reserved wooer’s confidence before he broached the astounding project he had formed.
“I take it,” he said, at last, seeing that Lindsay was convinced he meant well to Nancy, “I take it Lord Colonsay cannot supplement the small allowance he now makes you?”
“No. It’s not to be thought of. Scottish estates grow poorer every decade. Even now Dad makes no pretense of supporting a title. He lives very quietly, and is hard put to it to give me a couple of hundred a year.”
“Then I can’t see how you can expect to marry the daughter of a very rich man like Hugh Marten.”
“Heaven help me, neither do I!”