Christian was a woman who stood very still. She turned her head without turning her body as Mrs. Cockburn approached with her request, and Balnillo saw her calm acquiescence.
His breath had been almost taken away as he learned the identity of the stranger. Here was the woman who knew everything about that astounding young man, his late guest, whose alarming illness had recalled him, who had lived at St. Germain with the exiled queen, yet who was the grandmother of a most audacious Whig spy! There was no trace of recent ill-health here. He had pictured some faint, feeble shred of old womanhood, not the commanding creature whose grey eyes were considering him as he advanced under cover of her leisurely consent. She seemed to measure him carelessly as he stood before her. He was torn asunder in mind, awestruck, dragged this way by his surprised admiration, that way by his intense desire to wring from her something about Flemington. Here was a chance, indeed! But Balnillo felt his courage drown in the rising fear of being unable to profit by that chance. Admiring bewilderment overcame every other feeling. He no longer regretted the price he had paid for the lace on his cravat.
His name had roused Madam Flemington, though she gave no sign of the thrill that went through her as it fell from Mrs. Cockburn’s lips. As David stood before her in the correct yet sober foppery of his primrose and mouse-colour, she regretted that she was quite ignorant of the pretext on which Archie had left his picture unfinished, nor upon what terms he had parted with the judge. She had no reason for supposing Balnillo to be aware of the young man’s real character. He had been fighting with James Logie, according to Skirling Wattie, yet there seemed to be no enmity in the business, for here was his brother, Lord Balnillo, assiduous in getting himself presented to her. Mrs. Cockburn had put her request with a smiling hint at the effect she had produced on his lordship. Christian glanced at David’s meticulous person and smiled, arrogantly civil, secretly anxious, and remained silent, ready to follow his lead with caution.
The shrewd side of Balnillo was uppermost to-night, stimulated perhaps by the sight of society and by the exhilarating sound of its voice. He recovered his momentarily scattered wits and determined to approach his new acquaintance with such direct and simple questions as might seem to her to be the natural inquiries of a man interested in Flemington, and innocent of any mystery concerning him. It was quite possible—so he reasoned—that she was unaware of the details of what had happened on Inchbrayock Island. Archie had fled, and the search for him had produced no result; he was unlikely to have made for his own home if he did not wish to be found, and he and Madam Flemington might not have met since the affair of the Venture. It should be his—Balnillo’s—task to convince her of his ignorance.
His intense curiosity about Archie was almost stronger than his wrath against him. Unlike James, whose bitterness was too deep for words, whose soul was driven before the fury of his own feelings like a restless ghost, David still looked back with a certain pleasant excitement to Flemington’s meteoric flash through the even atmosphere of his daily life. He would dearly have liked to bring him to justice, but he was anxious to hear a little more of him first.
He had a curious mixture of feelings about him. There was no vainer man in Scotland than Balnillo, and if the mental half of his vanity had suffered from the deception practised on it, the physical half was yet preening itself in the sunny remembrance of the portrait at home—the portrait of David Balnillo as he would fain have had the world see him—the portrait, alas and alas! unfinished. He could not feel quite as James felt, who had opened his purse, and, more—far more than that—had laid open the most sacred page of his life before Flemington. He had placed his personal safety in his hands, too, though he counted that as a matter of less moment.
“Madam,” said Balnillo, “to see you is to rejoice that you have recovered from your serious illness.”
“You are very obliging, my lord. I am quite well,” replied Christian, concealing a slight surprise at this remark.
“I am most happy in being presented to you,” he continued. “What news have you of my charming friend Mr. Flemington, may I ask?”