A keen observer would guess at once an admixture of blood that betrayed its foreign strain in that supple grace of his; in the olive skin, the light feet, and the glossy black hair that was brushed close and thick to his shapely head.
Not French. For the Frenchman moves on a framework of wire, fretting toward action, deadly in attack. But the race that bred Napoleon, subtle and resistant, built upon tempered steel that bends but rarely breaks.
Now, as he reached the last block and the house he sought, McTaggart paused for a second, irresolute, on the step.
He seemed to gather courage with a quick indrawn breath, and his mouth was set in a hard line as his hand pressed the bell.
Then he raised his eyes to the knocker above, and with the slight action his whole face changed.
For, instead of being black beneath their dark brows, the man's eyes were blue, an intense, fiery blue; with the clear depths and the temper touch that one sees nowhere else save in the strong type of the hardy mountain race. They were not the blue of Ireland, with her half-veiled, sorrowful mirth; nor the placid blue of England, that mild forget-me-not. They were utterly unmistakable; they brought with them a breath of heather-gloried solitude and the deep and silent lochs.
Here was a Scot—a hillsman from the North; no need of his name to cry aloud the fact.
And yet...
The door was opened, and at once the imprisoned fog finding a new outlet drove into the narrow hall.
A tall, bony parlour maid was staring back at him as, mechanically, McTaggart repeated the great man's name.