“That was more from choice than from necessity—at least, so I have heard,” said Archie.
“You heard that, Mr. Flemington?”
“My lord, do you think that we obscure country-folk know nothing? or that reputations don’t fly farther than Edinburgh? The truth is that we of the younger generation are not made of the same stuff. That is what my grandmother tells me so often—so often that, from force of habit, I don’t listen. But I have begun to believe it at last.”
“She is a wise woman,” said Balnillo.
“She has been a mighty attractive one,” observed Archie meditatively; “at least, so she was thought at St. Germain.”
“At St. Germain?” exclaimed the judge.
“My grandfather died in exile with his master, and my father too,” replied Flemington quietly.
There was a silence, and then James Logie opened his mouth to speak, but Archie had risen.
“Let me go, Lord Balnillo,” he said. “The truth is, my work needs a steady hand, and I mean to have it when I begin your portrait to-morrow.”