"Come, and I'll show you the flower of Wittisdale, the rose of Duntrum," said this young man. "She has been away in Edinburgh the whole winter; but mind you, none of your cantrips here. I warn you off before you see her. I'll have no interlopers cutting me out. Turn the heads of all the others, if you like, with your acting and your stories, but this one is mine."
"They are all just as like each other as apples in a basket," said the cynic John.
Nevertheless, when he went lightly into the brightly lighted room following his friend, John in a moment felt his heart leap into his throat: for there, standing a little behind the mistress of the house, with a curious little air of consciousness which seemed to him to prove that she was on her guard and ready for the startled look which he gave her, full in her face as if it had been a blow—to his extreme confusion and surprise there stood suddenly before him the woman of the coach door, the woman of his dreams.
CHAPTER III.
When he reviewed afterwards, in quietness, the bewildering impressions of that night, John said to himself that it was the attitude of Miss Wamphrey which struck him before he had seen her face, and before he knew who she was, and that she was the object of young Maxwell's devotion. But probably this was only an idea developed afterwards, when he had begun to think of her in the character of a mysterious creature with a secret; for, indeed, to nobody else did she appear anything but a pretty girl in her twenties, very nicely dressed, with a little air of having descended from superior heights of fashion upon those circles of Duntrum which felt themselves so exclusive. Marion had spent most of the season in Edinburgh: she had even been in London: and various other girls in the assembly had already noted several points in her attire as things that were doubtless "to be worn," since she had just come from these fountain-heads of fashion. But what John remarked, or thought he remarked, was that she stood as one might to whom there might possibly arise an occasion to fly, which was a quite absurd exaggeration of any possibility, even if he were right in his surmises: also, which perhaps was more likely in that hypothesis, that she looked as if she expected something to happen, and glanced up behind the fan, of which she made greater use than a rustic Scotch maiden was apt to do (which was one of the things that struck the other girls as probably a new development of fashion), or over the shoulder of the chaperon, whom she followed like her shadow (which also was not a habit common among the young ladies of Duntrum), with a certain keen look of alarm, of expectance in her eyes. It happened that John saw her, after his eyes, as he thought, had been attracted to her by this peculiarity of attitude and look at a moment when she had dropped her fan to greet a friend, and before she perceived himself in the little crowd.
"Hullo!" he said to himself in the sudden surprise of recognition, and unaware he said it aloud.
"What's happened?" said Maxwell, by his side; "do you see anybody you know? By the way," he added, "it is Marion Wamphrey; of course you must have met her in Edinburgh. I wonder I never thought of that before."
"Which is Miss Wamphrey?" said John. He looked in the other direction that he might not betray himself, and then looked again to see that the girl had put up her fan, and that (as he thought) the something she was expecting had happened. She had seen him. Her eyes had taken a roundness which they had not before, the alarm of expectation had gone, and a sort of panic had come in its place. He saw her (or thought he saw her) obliterate herself behind the larger form of the lady with whom she was for a moment—then look out again over her shoulder, as if standing on tiptoe. Of course, she must have expected, John thought to himself, all that was happening or was about to happen. She must have known she would meet him. She must have been prepared to be recognised. She must be now at the height of a great crisis of mind, wound up to face it out, hoping that perhaps he might have been less quick of observation, less certain of recollection than she was.
"That's her," said Maxwell, with a wave of his hand towards the group, "playing keek-bo with somebody over Mrs Brydon's shoulder. Just like her saucy ways! You'll find Marion no country cousin, I can tell you, Percival. There's not one of your Edinburgh fine ladies more——Eh? think you have seen her before? I'll be bound you have seen her before! She's been spending the season, I tell you, in Edinburgh, and you that have your entrées everywhere——"
"Not so much as that," said John, with modesty; "and you must remember I have had all the fun cut off this year——"