“You’re talking of the girl,” I said, sharply, and not much caring to show him how hot my face burned at having to mention her.
“That same,” said he; “I’ll warrant that if it wasn’t for the girl (the old tale! the old tale!), you had thought the young sprig not a bad gentleman after all.”
“Oh, damn his soul!” I blurted out “What is he that he should pester his betters with his attentions?”
“A cousin, I think, a simple cousin-german they tell me,” said John, drily; “and in a matter of betters, now—eh?”
My friend coughed on the edge of his plaid, and I could swear he was laughing at me. I said nothing for a while, and with my skin burning, led the way at a hunter’s pace. But John was not done with the subject.
“I’m a bit beyond the age of it myself,” he said; “but that’s no reason why I shouldn’t have eyes in my head. I know how much put about you are to have this young fellow gallivanting round the lady.”
“Jealous, you mean,” I cried.
“I didn’t think of putting it that way.”
“No; it’s too straightforward a way for you,—ever the roundabout way for you. I wish to God you would sometimes let your Campbell tongue come out of the kink, and say what you mean.”
With a most astonishing steady voice for a man as livid as the snow on the hair of his brogues, and with his hand on the hilt of his dirk, John cried—