“But now, of course—-”
“Just the weather, Gilian,” she hastened to interject. “A bonny night with stars, the scent of flower, a misty garden—I could find some inspiration in them myself for poetry, and I make no pretence at it.”
“There was a little more,” he said meaningly; “but no matter, that may wait,” and he proceeded immediately to the making of a poem as he went, the subject a night of stars and a maiden. They had got into the dark upper end of the town overhung by the avenue trees, the lands were spotted with the lemon lights of the evening candles, choruses came from the New Inns where fishermen from Cowal met to spend a shilling or two in the illusion of joy. Mr. Spencer saw them as he passed and was suffused by a kindly glow of uncommon romance. He saw, as he thought, a pair made for each other because they were of an age and of a size (as if that meant much); what should they be but lovers coming from the gardens of Duke George in such a night and the very heavens twinkling with the courtship of the stars? He looked and sighed. Far off in the south was an old tale of his own; the lady upstairs eternally whining because she must be banished to the wilds away from her roaring native city was not in it. “Lucky lad!” said he to himself. “He is not so shy as we thought him.” They came for a moment under the influence of the swinging lamp above his door, then passed into the dusk. He went into his public room, and “Mary,” he cried to a maid, “a little drop of the French for Sergeant Cameron and me. You will allow me, Sergeant? I feel a little need of an evening brace.” And he drank, for the sake of bygone dusks, with his customer.
Nan and Gilian now walked on the pavement, a discreet distance apart. She stopped at the mantua-makers door. He lingered on the parting, eager to prolong it. The street was deserted; from the Sergeant More’s came the sound of song; some fallen leaves ran crisp along the stones, blown by an air of wind. He had her by the hand, still loath to leave, when suddenly the door of the mantua-maker’s opened and out came a little woman, who, plunging from the splendour of two penny dips into the outer mirk, ran into his arms before she noticed his presence. She drew back with an apology uttered in Gaelic in her hurried perturbation. It was Miss Mary.
“Auntie,” he said, no more.
She glanced at his companion and started as if in fear, shivered, put out a hand and bade her welcome home.
“Dear me! Miss Nan,” said she, “amn’t I proud to see you back? What a tall lady you have grown, and so like—so like——” She stopped embarrassed.
Her hand had gone with an excess of kindness upon the girl’s arm ere she remembered all that lay between them and the heyday of another Nan than this. Of Gilian she seemed to take no notice, which much surprised him with a sense of something wanting.
At last they parted, and he went up with Miss Mary to the Paymaster’s house.