“Archie was distracted by my illness, poor boy, and I fear that your lordship’s portrait suffered. But you will understand his anxiety when I tell you that I am the only living relation that he has, and that his devotion to me——”
“He needs no excuse!” cried David fervently.
She laid her hand upon his arm.
“I am still hardly myself,” she said. “I cannot stand long. Fetch me a chair, my lord.”
He skipped across the floor and laid hold upon one just in time, for a gentleman was on the point of claiming it. He carried it back with the air of a conqueror.
“Apart—by the curtain, if you please,” said Christian, waving her hand. “We can speak more comfortably on the fringe of this rout of chattering people.”
He set the chair down in a quiet place by the wall, and she settled herself upon it, leaning back, her shoulder turned from the company. Balnillo’s delight deepened.
“And the portrait, my lord. He did not tell me what arrangement had been made for finishing it,” said Christian, looking up at him as he stood beside her.
She seemed to be completely unconcerned, and she spoke with a leisurely dignity and ease that turned his ideas upside down. He could make nothing of it. She appeared to court the subject of Archie and the picture. He could only guess her to be innocent, and his warm admiration helped his belief. At no moment since he knew the truth from his brother’s lips had Archie’s character seemed so black as it did now. David’s indignation waxed as he grew more certain that Flemington had deceived the noble woman to whom he owed so much, even as he had deceived him. He was becoming so sure of it that he had no desire to enlighten her. He longed to ask plainly where Archie was, but he hesitated. Even the all-wise Mrs. Cockburn was ignorant of this lady’s political sympathies, and knew her only as the widow of a loyal exile. What might—what would be her feelings if she were to see her grandson in his real character?
Righteous anger smouldered under Balnillo’s primrose waistcoat, and his spasmodic shrewdness began to doze in the increasing warmth of his chivalrous pity for this new and interesting victim of the engaging rogue.