Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/367

 nerves were on the strain to echo. Surely Flora would come: surely none of her guardians, natural or officious, would expect to find me at the ball. But the minutes passed, and I must convey Mrs. and Miss McBean back to their seats beneath the gallery.

"Miss Gilchrist—Miss Flora Gilchrist—Mr. Ronald Gilchrist! Mr. Robbie! Major Arthur Chevenix!"

The first name plumped like a shot across my bows, and brought me up standing—for a second only. Before the catalogue was out, I had dropped the McBeans at their moorings and was heading down on my enemies' line of battle. Their faces were a picture. Flora's cheek flushed, and her lips parted in the prettiest cry of wonder. Mr. Robbie took snuff. Ronald went red in the face, and Major Chevenix white. The intrepid Miss Gilchrist turned not a hair.

"What will be the meaning of this?" she demanded, drawing to a stand, and surveying me through her gold-rimmed eyeglass.

"Madam," said I, with a glance at Chevenix, "you may call it a cutting-out expedition."

"Miss Gilchrist," he began, "you will surely not"

But I was too quick for him.

"Madam, since when has the gallant Major superseded Mr. Robbie as your family adviser?"

"H'mph!" said Miss Gilchrist; which in itself was not reassuring. But she turned to the lawyer.

"My dear lady," he answered her look, "this very imprudent young man seems to have burnt his boats, and no doubt recks very little if, in that heroical conflagration, he burns our fingers. Speaking, however, as your family adviser"—and he laid enough stress on it to convince me that there was no love lost between him and the interloping Chevenix—"I suggest that we gain nothing by protracting