“I could scarcely meet her womanly innuendo with a coarse and abrupt denial,” said he. “There are some shreds of common decency left in me yet.”
“And you prefer to let her think the worst?”
He looked at me with a heightened colour, and he laughed shortly.
“You’ll be no loser by that, perhaps,” he said; and before I could answer he added, “Pardon a foolish speech, Colin; I learned the trick of fanfaron among foreign gentry who claimed a conquête d’amour for every woman who dropped an eye to their bold scrutiny. Do not give me any share of your jealousy for Lachlan MacLachlan of that ilk—I’m not deserving the honour. And that reminds me——”
He checked himself abruptly.
“Come, come,” said I, “finish your story; what about MacLachlan and the lady?”
“The lady’s out of the tale this time,” he said, shortly. “I met him stravaiging the vacant street last night; that was all.”
“Then I can guess his mission without another word from you,” I cried, after a little dumfounderment. “He would be on the track of his cousin.”
“Not at all,” said John, with a bland front; “he told me he was looking for a boatman to ferry him over the loch.”
This story was so plainly fabricated to ease my apprehension that down I went, incontinent, and sought the right tale in the burgh.