第37章

"I know what you mean," said the girl lightly. "You think he's a crank. But it's all over now; the engagement's off.""I trust that this does not mean that you doubt his success?"The lady shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. "That's all right enough, I reckon. There's a hundred thousand dollars in the syndicate. Maw put in twenty thousand, and Custer's bound to make it go--particularly as there's some talk of a compromise. But Malcolm's a crank, and I reckon if it wasn't for the compromise the syndicate wouldn't have much show. Why, he didn't even know that the McHulishes had no title.""Do you think he has been suffering under a delusion in regard to his relationship?""No; he was only a fool in the way he wanted to prove it. He actually got these boys to think it could be filibustered into his possession. Had a sort of idea of 'a rising in the Highlands,' you know, like that poem or picture--which is it? And those fool boys, and Custer among them, thought it would be great fun and a great spree. Luckily, maw had the gumption to get Watson to write over about it to one of his friends, a Mr.--Mr.--MacFen, a very prominent man.""Perhaps you mean Sir James MacFen," suggested the consul. "He's a knight. And what did HE say?" he added eagerly.

"Oh, he wrote a most sensible letter," returned the lady, apparently mollified by the title of Watson's adviser, "saying that there was little doubt, if any, that if the American McHulishes wanted the old estate they could get it by the expenditure of a little capital. He offered to make the trial; that was the compromise they're talking about. But he didn't say anything about there being no 'Lord'

McHulish."

"Perhaps he thought, as you were Americans, you didn't care for THAT," said the consul dryly.

"That's no reason why we shouldn't have it if it belonged to us, or we chose to pay for it," said the lady pertly.

"Then your changed personal relations with Mr. McHulish is the reason why you hear so little of his progress or his expectations?""Yes; but he don't know that they are changed, for we haven't seen him since we've been here, although they say he's here, and hiding somewhere about.""Why should he be hiding?"

The young girl lifted her pretty brows. "Maybe he thinks it's mysterious. Didn't I tell you he was a crank?" Yet she laughed so naively, and with such sublime unconsciousness of any reflection on herself, that the consul was obliged to smile too.

"You certainly do not seem to be breaking your heart as well as your engagement," he said.

"Not much--but here comes maw. Look here," she said, turning suddenly and coaxingly upon him, "if she asks you to come along with us up north, you'll come, won't you? Do! It will be such fun!""Up north?" repeated the consul interrogatively.

"Yes; to see the property. Here's maw."

A more languid but equally well-appointed woman had entered the room. When the ceremony of introduction was over, she turned to her daughter and said, "Run away, dear, while I talk business with--er--this gentleman," and, as the girl withdrew laughingly, she half stifled a reminiscent yawn, and raised her heavy lids to the consul.

"You've had a talk with my Elsie?"

The consul confessed to having had that pleasure.

"She speaks her mind," said Mrs. Kirkby wearily, "but she means well, and for all her flightiness her head's level. And since her father died she runs me," she continued with a slight laugh. After a pause, she added abstractedly, "I suppose she told you of her engagement to young McHulish?""Yes; but she said she had broken it."

Mrs. Kirkby lifted her eyebrows with an expression of relief. "It was a piece of girl and boy foolishness, anyway," she said. "Elsie and he were children together at MacCorkleville,--second cousins, in fact,--and I reckon he got her fancy excited over his nobility, and his being the chief of the McHulishes. Of course Custer will manage to get something for the shareholders out of it,--I never knew him to fail in a money speculation yet,--but I think that's about all. I had an idea of going up with Elsie to take a look at the property, and I thought of asking you to join us. Did Elsie tell you? I know she'd like it--and so would I."For all her indolent, purposeless manner, there was enough latent sincerity and earnestness in her request to interest the consul.

Besides, his own curiosity in regard to this singularly supported claim was excited, and here seemed to be an opportunity of satisfying it. He was not quite sure, either, that his previous antagonism to his fair countrywoman's apparent selfishness and snobbery was entirely just. He had been absent from America a long time; perhaps it was he himself who had changed, and lost touch with his compatriots. And yet the demonstrative independence and recklessness of men like Custer were less objectionable to, and less inconsistent with, his American ideas than the snobbishness and almost servile adaptability of the women. Or was it possible that it was only a weakness of the sex, which no republican nativity or education could eliminate? Nevertheless he looked up smilingly.

"But the property is, I understand, scattered about in various places," he said.

"Oh, but we mean to go only to Kelpie Island, where there is the ruin of an old castle. Elsie must see that."The consul thought it might be amusing. "By all means let us see that. I shall be delighted to go with you."His ready and unqualified assent appeared to relieve and dissipate the lady's abstraction. She became more natural and confiding;spoke freely of Malcolm's mania, which she seemed to accept as a hallucination or a conviction with equal cheerfulness, and, in brief, convinced the consul that her connection with the scheme was only the caprice of inexperienced and unaccustomed idleness. He left her, promising to return the next day and arrange for their early departure.

His way home lay through one of the public squares of St.