Having kissed Maisie most dutifully, Wat went forward to offer his hand to Kate. She gave hers to him quickly, and yet, as it seemed to him, reluctantly also. Instinctively she kept a chair between them as she did so.
"See, it is all over with oil and chopped lettuce," she said, looking plaintively at her hand, as though Wat had been personally responsible for the defilement.
Maisie was at the farther end of the room, bending over her saucepans. Wat leaned quickly across the table to Kate.
"Are you glad I have come back?" he asked, in a low voice.
"You had a fine morning for your ride," she replied, looking down at the salad and mixing the ingredients with the most scrupulous exactitude.
Wat straightened himself instantaneously as if on parade, and stalked with much dignity to the end of the room at which Maisie was still busy.
And this caused him to miss a singular look which Kate cast after him, a look of mingled pity and entreaty, wholly wasted on the square shoulders and erect head, but from which, had Wat caught it, he might have learned that though it may sometimes be well to appear proud with a girl, nevertheless, if you love her, not too soon and not too often.
Presently Will Gordon came bustling down to breakfast, having cleaned his accoutrements and adorned himself with such sober trappings as were permitted by the Spartan taste of the Covenanting regiment. Will had still that noisily cheerful self-consciousness which always characterizes the very young husband doing the unaccustomed honors of his house.
"Sit down and be welcome, Wat, lad," he cried, "and tell us all the tale of your journeying."
And so at the table which Maisie had covered with plain coarse Dutch linen, very unlike the fine cloths which she had left behind her in Scotland, the four sat down. It was a heartsome meal, and after a little while Lochinvar began to tell his tale, giving himself little honor, making nothing of the danger, and dwelling much on the ridiculous aspect of Haxo the Bull, his ill-favored Calf, and his bald-headed Killer.