“And now in no one?”
“God forbid! I discriminate.”
“Now, Lady Mary,” replied Maimie, “I want my lion to be led about and exhibited, and I give him over to you.”
For some time Ranald stood near, chatting to two or three people to whom Lady Mary had introduced him, but listening eagerly all the while to Maimie talking to the men who were crowded about her. How brilliantly she talked, finding it quite within her powers to keep several men busy at the same time; and as Ranald listened to her gay, frivolous talk, more and more he became conscious of an unpleasantness in her tone. It was thin, shallow, and heartless.
“Can it be possible,” he said to himself, “that once she had the power to make my heart quicken its beat?”
“Tell me about the West,” Lady Mary was saying, when Ranald came to himself.
“If I begin about the West,” he replied, “I must have both time and space to deliver myself.”
“Come, then. We shall find a corner,” said Lady Mary, and for half an hour did Ranald discourse to her of the West, and so eloquently that Lady Mary quite forgot that he was a lion and that she had been intrusted with the duty of exhibiting him. By and by Maimie found them.
“Now, Lady Mary, you are very selfish, for so many people are wanting to see our hero, and here is the premier wanting to see you.”
“Ah, Lady Mary,” said Sir John, “you have captured the man from Glengarry, I see.”