“Not a morsel!” said the lady, looking point-blank at his nose.
“Mo thruagh!” said Macdonald tragically; “then are we indeed forsaken.”
“You made a shabby flight, by all accounts, from the lady’s brother.”
“Humph!” said he, for the first time disconcerted; indeed, it was a story no way creditable to Clan Macdonald. “I think,” said he, “we’ll better let that flea stick to the wall,” and looked across the room to where his cousin sat glowering in a manifest anxiety.
“Oh, Barrisdale, Barrisdale, can ye no’ be a good man?” said Miss Duthie, in a petty lady-like concern, and unable to keep her eyes from that unlucky nose.
He put up his hand and covered it. She flushed to the neck that he should so easily have divined her, and he laughed.
“It’s no use trying, ma’am,” said he. “Let me be as good as gold and I would never get credit for it from your sex, that must always fancy that a handsome face never goes but with a handsome heart.”
She rose with an air of vexation to leave him, very red below her mask; the last dance was on the point of ending, the dowagers were coming in with their Paisley plaids on their shoulders. “I would never hurt any person’s feelings by allusion to his personal appearance,” she said, as she was turning away.
“I am sure of it, ma’am,” said he; “you are most considerate.”