“All that goes without saying,” said Colin, who did not like to commit himself to the French. “I almost think I have already proved my perfect allegiance.”
“Oh, you were only a boy last year,” said Miss Matty, with some evanescent change of colour, which looked like a blush to Colin’s delighted eyes. “Now you are a man and a tutor, and we shall behave to you accordingly. How lovely that glen was last spring, to be sure,” continued the girl, with a little quite unconscious natural feeling; “do you remember the day when it rained, and we had to wait under the beeches, and when you imagined all sorts of things in the pattering of the shower? Do you ever write any poetry now? I want so much to see what you have been doing—since—” said the siren, who, half-touched by nature in her own person, was still perfectly conscious of her power.
“Since!” Colin repeated the word over to himself with a flush of happiness which, perhaps, no real good in existence could have equalled. Poor boy! if he could but have known what had happened “since” in Miss Matty’s experience—but, fortunately, he had not the smallest idea what was involved in the season which the young lady had lately terminated, or in the brilliant winter campaign in the country, which had brought adorers in plenty, but nothing worthy of the beauty’s acceptance, to Miss Matty’s feet. Colin thought only of the beatific dreams, the faithful follies which had occupied his own juvenile imagination “since.” As for the heroine herself, she looked slightly confused to hear him repeat the word. She had meant it to produce its effect, but then she was thinking solely of a male creature of her own species, and not of a primitive, innocent soul like that which looked at her in a glow of young delight out of Colin’s eyes. She was used to be admired and complimented, and humoured to the top of her bent, but she did not understand being believed in, and the new sensation somewhat flattered and embarrassed the young woman of the world. She watched his look, as he replied to her, and thereby added doubly, though she did not mean it, to the effect of what she had said.
“I never write poetry,” said Colin, “I wish I could—I know how I should use the gift; but I have a few verses about somewhere, I suppose, like everybody else. Last spring I was almost persuaded I could do something better; but that feeling lasts only so long as one’s inspiration lasts,” said the youth, looking down, in his turn, lest his meaning might be discovered too quickly in his eye.
And then there ensued a pause—a pause which was more dangerous than the talk, and which Miss Matty made haste to break.
“Do you know you are very much changed?” she said. “You never did any of this society-talk last year. You have been making friends with some ladies somewhere, and they have taught you conversation. But, as for me, I am your early friend, and I preferred you when you did not talk like other people,” said Miss Matty, with a slight pout. “Tell me who has been forming your mind?”
Perhaps it was fortunate for Colin at this moment that Lady Hallamshire had become much bored by the group which had gathered round her sofa. The dowager was clever in her way, and had written a novel or two, and was accustomed to be amused by the people who had the honour of talking to her. Though she was no longer a leader of fashion, she kept up the manners and customs of that remarkable species of the human race, and when she was bored, permitted her sentiments to be plainly visible in her expressive countenance. Though it was the member for the county who was enlightening her at that moment in the statistics of the West Highlands, and though she had been in a state of great anxiety five minutes before about the emigration which was depopulating the moors, her ladyship broke in quite abruptly in the midst of the poor-rates with a totally irrelevant observation—
“It appears to me that Matty Frankland has got into another flirtation; I must go and look after her,” said the Dowager; and she smiled graciously upon the explanatory member, and left him talking, to the utter consternation of their hostess. Lady Hallamshire thought it probable that the young man was amusing as well as handsome, or Matty Frankland, who was a girl of discretion, would not have received him into such marked favour. “Though I daresay there is nobody here worth her trouble,” her chaperone thought as she looked round the room; but anyhow a change was desirable. “Matty, mignonne, I want to know what you are talking about,” she said, suddenly coming to anchor opposite the two young people; and a considerable fuss ensued to find her ladyship a seat, during which time Colin had a hundred minds to run away. The company took a new centre after this performance on the part of the great lady, and poor Colin, all at once, began to feel that he was doing exactly the reverse of what was expected of him. He got up with a painful blush as he met Mr. Jordan’s astonished eye. The poor boy did not know that he had been much more remarked before: “flirting openly with that dreadful little coquette Miss Frankland, and turning his back upon his superiors,” as some of the indignant bystanders said. Even Colin’s matronly friends, who pitied him and formed his mind, disapproved of his behaviour. “She only means to make a fool of you, and you ought not to allow yourself to be taken in by it,” said one of these patronesses in his ear, calling him aside. But Fate had determined otherwise.
“Don’t go away,” said Lady Hallamshire. “I like Matty to introduce all her friends to me; and you two look as if you had known each other a long time,” said the dowager, graciously; for she was pleased, like most women, by Colin’s looks. “One would know him again if one met him,” she added, in an audible aside; “he doesn’t look exactly like everybody else, as most young men do. Who is he, Matty?” And Miss Frankland’s chaperone turned the light of her countenance full upon Colin, quite indifferent to the fact that he had heard one part of her speech quite as well as the other. When a fine lady consents to enter the outer world, it is to be expected that she should behave herself as civilized people do among savages, and the English among the other nations of the world.
“Oh, yes! we have known each other a long time,” said Matty, partly with a generous, partly with a mischievous, instinct. “My uncle knows Mr. Campbell’s father very well, and Harry and he and I made acquaintance when we were children. I am sure you must have heard how nearly Harry was drowned once when we were at Kilchurn Castle. It was Mr. Campbell who saved his life.”