eared times were not what they
were for business in Argyll, but the air was bracing--and much to the
same effect, which sent the pseudo wine merchant gladly into the hands
of her less ceremonious husband.

As for Petullo, he was lukewarm. He saw no prospects of profit from this
dubious foreigner thrust upon his attention by his well-squeezed client
the Baron of Doom. Yet something of style, some sign of race in the
stranger, thawed him out of his suspicious reserve, and he was kind
enough to be condescending to his visitor while cursing the man who sent
him there and the man who guided him. They sat together at the window,
and meanwhile in the inner end of the room a lonely lady made shameful
love.

"Oh, Sim!" she whispered, sitting beside him on the couch and placing
the candlestick on a table behind them; "this is just like old
times--the dear darling old times, isn't it?"

She referred to the first of their _liaison_, when they made their love
in that same room under the very nose of a purblind husband.

The Chamberlain toyed with his silver box and found it easiest to get
out of a response by a sigh that might mean anything.

"You have the loveliest hand," she went on, looking at his fingers,
that certainly were shapely enough, as no one knew better than Simon
Mac-Taggart. "I don't say you are in any way handsome,"--her eyes
betrayed her real thought,--"but I'll admit to the hands,--they're dear
pets, Sim."

He thrust them in his pockets.

"Heavens! Kate!" he protested in a low tone, and assuming a quite
unnecessary look of vacuity for the benefit of the husband, who gazed
across the dim-lit room at them, "don't behave like an idiot; faithful
wives never let their husbands see them looking like that at another
man's fingers. What do you think of our monsher? He's a pretty enough
fellow, if you'll not give me the credit."

"Oh, he's good enough, I daresay," she answered without looking aside a
moment. "I would think him much better if he was an inch or two taller,
a shade blacker, and Hielan' to boot. But tell me this, and tell me
no more, Sim; where has your lordship been for three whole days? Three
whole days, Simon MacTaggart, and not a word of explanation. Are you
not ashamed of yourself, sir? Do you know that I was along the riverside
every night this week? Can you fancy what I felt to hear your flageolet
playing for tipsy fools in Ludovic's room? Very well, I said: let him!
I have pride of my own, and