Count Bunker Part 18

"What am I to do?" she asked at length. "I can't believe he really---- But how am I to find out?"

"I shall make further investigations," promptly replied Sir Justin.

"And I also," added the Countess.

"Meanwhile," said Sir Justin, "we shall be exceedingly interested to learn what further particulars of his wanderings the Baron supplies you with."

"Yes," observed the Countess, "he can fortunately be trusted to betray himself. You will inform me, Alicia, as soon as you hear from him again."

Her daughter made no reply.

Sir Justin rose and bade them a grave farewell.

"In my daughter's name I thank you cordially," said the Countess, as she pressed his hand.

"Anything I have done has been a pleasure to me," he a.s.sured them with a sincerity there was no mistaking.

CHAPTER XV

In an ancient and delightful garden, where glimpses of the loch below gleamed through a ma.s.s of summer foliage, and the gray castle walls looked down on smooth, green glades, the Baron slowly paced the shaven turf. But he did not pace it quite alone, for by his side moved a graceful figure in a wide, sun-shading hat and a frock entirely irresistible. Beneath the hat, by bending a little down, you could have seen the dark liquid eyes and tender lips of Eva Gallosh. And the Baron frequently bent down.

"I am proud of everyzing zat I find in my home," said the Baron gallantly.

The lady's color rose, but not apparently in anger.

"Ach, here is a pretty leetle seat!" he exclaimed in a tone of pleased discovery, just as though he had not been leading her insidiously towards it ever since they, came into the garden.

It was, indeed, a most shady and secluded bench, an ideal seat for any gallant young Baron who had left his Baroness sufficiently far away. He glanced down complacently upon his brawny knees, displayed (he could not but think) to great advantage beneath his kilt and sporran, and then with a tenderer complacency, turned his gaze upon his fair companion.

"You say you like me in ze tartan?" he murmured.

"I adore everything Highland! Oh, Lord Tulliwuddle, how fortunate you are!"

Nature had gifted Miss Gallosh with a generous share of romantic sentiment. It was she who had egged on her father to rent this Highland castle for the summer, instead of chartering a yacht as he had done for the past few years; and ever since they had come here that sentiment had grown, till she was ready to don the white c.o.c.kade and plot a new Jacobite uprising. Then, while her heart was in this inspired condition, a n.o.ble young chief had stepped in to complete the story. No wonder her dark eyes burned.

"What attachment you must feel for each stone of the Castle!" she continued in a rapt voice. "How your heart must beat to remember that your great-grandfather--wasn't his name Fergus?"

"Fergus: yes," said the Baron, blindly but promptly.

"No, no; it was Ian, of course."

"Ach, so! Ian he vas."

"You were thinking of his father," she smiled.

"Yes, his fazzer."

She reflected sagely.

"I am afraid I get my facts mixed up some times. Ian--ah, Reginald came before him--not Fergus!"

"Reginald--oh yes, so he did!"

She looked a trifle disappointed.

"If I were you I should know them all by heart," said she.

"I vill learn zem. Oh yes, I most not make soch mistakes."

Indeed he registered a very sincere vow to study his family history that afternoon.

"What was I saying? Oh yes--about your brave great-grandfather. Do you know, Lord Tulliwuddle, I want to ask you a strange favor? You won't think it very odd of me?"

"Odd? Never! Already it is granted."

"I want to hear from your own lips--from the lips of an actual Lord Tulliwuddle--the story of your ancestor Ian's exploit."

With beseeching eyes and a face flushed with a sense of her presumption, she uttered this request in a voice that tore the Baron with conflicting emotions.

"Vich exploit do you mean?" he asked in a kindly voice but with a troubled eye.

"You must know! When he defended the pa.s.s, of course."

"Ach, so!"

The Baron looked at her, and though he boasted of no such inventive gifts as his friend Bunker, his ardent heart bade him rather commit himself to perdition than refuse.

"You will tell it to me?"

"I vill!"

Making as much as possible of the raconteur's privileges of clearing his throat, settling himself into good position, and gazing dreamily at the tree-tops for inspiration, he began in a slow, measured voice--

"In ze pa.s.s he stood. Zen gomed his enemies. He fired his gon and shooted some dead. Zen did zey run avay. Zat vas vat happened."

When he ventured to meet her candid gaze after thus lamely libelling his forefather, he was horrified to observe that she had already recoiled some feet away from him, and seemed still to be in the act of recoiling.

"It would have been kinder to tell me at once that I had asked too much!" she exclaimed in a voice affected by several emotions. "I only wanted to hear you repeat his death-cry as his foes slew him, so that it might always seem more real to me. And you snub me like this!"

The Baron threw himself upon one knee.

"Forgive me! I did jost lose mine head mit your eyes looking so at me! I get confused, you are so lovely! I did not mean to sn.o.b!"

In the ardor of his penitence he discovered himself holding her hand; she no longer seemed to be recoiling; and Heaven knows what might have happened next if an ostentatious sound of whistling had not come to their rescue.

"Bot you vill forgive?" he whispered, as they sprang up from their shady seat.