Part 49

Anne ran to the window.

“It is Sir Patrick!” she said. “Hide yourself before he comes in!”

“Hide myself?”

“What will he think if he sees you with me?”

He was Blanche’s guardian, and he believed Arnold to be at that moment visiting his new property. What he would think was not difficult to foresee. Arnold turned for help to Mr. Bishopriggs.

“Where can I go?”

Mr. Bishopriggs pointed to the bedroom door.

“Whar’ can ye go? There’s the nuptial chamber!”

“Impossible!”

Mr. Bishopriggs expressed the utmost extremity of human amazement by a long whistle, on one note.

“Whew! Is that the way ye talk o’ the nuptial chamber already?”

“Find me some other place--I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Eh! there’s my paintry! I trow that’s some other place; and the door’s at the end o’ the passage.”

Arnold hurried out. Mr. Bishopriggs--evidently under the impression that the case before him was a case of elopement, with Sir Patrick mixed up in it in the capacity of guardian--addressed himself, in friendly confidence, to Anne.

“My certie, mistress! it’s ill wark deceivin’ Sir Paitrick, if that’s what ye’ve dune. Ye must know, I was ance a bit clerk body in his chambers at Embro--”

The voice of Mistress Inchbare, calling for the head-waiter, rose shrill and imperative from the regions of the bar. Mr. Bishopriggs disappeared. Anne remained, standing helpless by the window. It was plain by this time that the place of her retreat had been discovered at Windygates. The one doubt to decide, now, was whether it would be wise or not to receive Sir Patrick, for the purpose of discovering whether he came as friend or enemy to the inn.

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.

SIR PATRICK.

THE doubt was practically decided before Anne had determined what to do. She was still at the window when the sitting-room door was thrown open, and Sir Patrick appeared, obsequiously shown in by Mr. Bishopriggs.

“Ye’re kindly welcome, Sir Paitrick. Hech, Sirs! the sight of you is gude for sair eyne.”

Sir Patrick turned and looked at Mr. Bishopriggs--as he might have looked at some troublesome insect which he had driven out of the window, and which had returned on him again.

“What, you scoundrel! have you drifted into an honest employment at last?”

Mr. Bishopriggs rubbed his hands cheerfully, and took his tone from his superior, with supple readiness,

“Ye’re always in the right of it, Sir Paitrick! Wut, raal wut in that aboot the honest employment, and me drifting into it. Lord’s sake, Sir, hoo well ye wear!”

Dismissing Mr. Bishopriggs by a sign, Sir Patrick advanced to Anne.

“I am committing an intrusion, madam which must, I am afraid, appear unpardonable in your eyes,” he said. “May I hope you will excuse me when I have made you acquainted with my motive?”

He spoke with scrupulous politeness. His knowledge of Anne was of the slightest possible kind. Like other men, he had felt the attraction of her unaffected grace and gentleness on the few occasions when he had been in her company--and that was all. If he had belonged to the present generation he would, under the circumstances, have fallen into one of the besetting sins of England in these days--the tendency (to borrow an illustration from the stage) to “strike an attitude” in the presence of a social emergency. A man of the present period, in Sir Patrick’s position, would have struck an attitude of (what is called) chivalrous respect; and would have addressed Anne in a tone of ready-made sympathy, which it was simply impossible for a stranger really to feel. Sir Patrick affected nothing of the sort. One of the besetting sins of his time was the habitual concealment of our better selves--upon the whole, a far less dangerous national error than the habitual advertisement of our better selves, which has become the practice, public and privately, of society in this age. Sir Patrick assumed, if anything, less sympathy on this occasion than he really felt. Courteous to all women, he was as courteous as usual to Anne--and no more.

“I am quite at a loss, Sir, to know what brings you to this place. The servant here informs me that you are one of a party of gentlemen who have just passed by the inn, and who have all gone on except yourself.” In those guarded terms Anne opened the interview with the unwelcome visitor, on her side.