The man was right. At one sweep he had spiked my guns, demolished my defenses. The triumph was sponged from my face. I fumed in a stress of impotence.
“I don’t know about that. I shall have to think of it. There is a duty to perform,” I said at last, lamely.
He waved a hand airily. “My dear fellow, think as long as you please. You can’t think away facts. Egad, they’re immutable. You know me to be no spy. Conceded that I am in a false position. What can you do about it? You can’t in honour give me up. I’faith, you’re handcuffed to inaction.”
I was, but my temper was not improved at hearing him tell it me so suavely and so blandly. He sat smiling and triumphant, chuckling no doubt at the dilemma into which he had thrust me. The worst of it was that while I was ostensibly master of the situation he had me at his mercy. I was a helpless victor without any of the fruits of victory.
“You took advantage of a girl’s soft heart to put her in a position that was indefensible,” I told him with bitter bluntness. “Save this of throwing yourself on her mercy there was no other way of approaching her. Of the wisdom of the serpent you have no lack. I congratulate you, Sir Robert. But one may be permitted to doubt the manliness of such a course.”
The pipers struck up a song that was the vogue among our party, and a young man passed the entrance of the room singing it.
| “Oh, it’s owre the border awa’, awa’, It’s owre the border awa’, awa’, We’ll on an’ we’ll march to Carlisle Ha’, Wi’ its yetts, its castles, an’ a’, an’ a’.” |
The audacious villain parodied it on the spot, substituting two lines of his own for the last ones.
| “You’ll on an’ you’ll march to Carlisle Ha’, To be hanged and quartered an’ a’, an’ a’,” |
he hummed softly in his clipped English tongue.