us that
day there would be none of fair judgment who could blame Nancy for her
conduct toward him afterward I can affirm that never from the moment
that his eyes fell on her did he remove them from her face. He was
accosted by several gentlemen in his progress toward us, but it was
with a fixed glance of absorbed admiration of her that he answered
them, curtly, as I thought, and as one who brooks no interruption.

Crossing the space toward us he came alone, the forward poise of the
body, and more than all the power of his head and chest, fixing the
idea I already had of a splendid kind of devil who would make
ill-fortune for any who crossed him.

"It is a great pleasure to see you again," he said, bowing low before
Nancy.

"You have been away a long time," she answered.

"The longest month that I have ever spent," he returned.

"The Highlands were not merry?" she asked.

"I had no heart for them."

"No?" she said. "I am sorry."

"I should rather, were it mine to choose, that you were glad to have me
find them dull," he answered.

"Would that be quite friendly?" she inquired, with a smile of
intentional misunderstanding.

"I am scarce asking for friendship," he returned, and there was no
mistaking the intent of either word or eye.

"By the way," he continued, "I have ridden half over Scotland and laid
by four horses to be here this afternoon; for which," he added, with
the little outward wave of his hand which became him so well, "I am
claiming no merit; for is there a man who knows you who would have done
otherwise?"

A look passed between them, a look which I was at a complete loss to
understand, as she answered, with a laugh:

"I think Mr. Pitcairn might successfully have struggled with the
temptation of laming horses to see me."

"But," the duke retorted, "as you told me yourself on that memorable
night we first met, 'Pitcairn's not rightly a man; he's just a head.'"

"In many ways," responded Nancy, and her eyelids drooped at her own
audacity, "in many ways he reminds me of you, your grace!"

The duke smiled back at her with a little drawing together of the
eyelids, which I had learned to know so well.

"I have," he said, "nearly a fortnight to spend in Edinburgh, in which
I shall make it the effort of my life to show you the difference
between us."

CHAPTER XIV

NANCY MEETS HER RIVAL

It was the morning after the outdoor party that Danvers came into the
breakfast-room with a plea