"I must away," said the Highlander. "Haward waits for me at Williamsburgh.
To-morrow, dearer to me than Deirdre to Naos! I will come again."
Hand in hand the two walked slowly toward that haunt of peace, Truelove's
quiet home. "And Marmaduke Haward awaits thee at Williamsburgh?" said the
Quakeress. "Last third day he met my father and me on the Fair View road,
and checked his horse and spoke to us. He is changed."
"Changed indeed!" quoth the Highlander. "A fire burns him, a wind drives
him; and yet to the world, last night"--He paused.
"Last night?" said Truelove.
"He had a large company at Marot's ordinary," went on the other. "There
were the Governor and his fellow Councilors, with others of condition or
fashion. He was the very fine gentleman, the perfect host, free, smiling,
full of wit. But I had been with him before they came. I knew the fires
beneath."
The two walked in silence for a few moments, when MacLean spoke again: "He
drank to her. At the last, when this lady had been toasted, and that, he
rose and drank to 'Audrey,' and threw his wineglass over his shoulder. He
hath done what he could. The world knows that he loves her honorably,
seeks her vainly in marriage. Something more I know. He gathered the
company together last evening that, as his guests, the highest officers,
the finest gentlemen of the colony, should go with him to the theatre to
see her for the first time as a player. Being what they were, and his
guests, and his passion known, he would insure for her, did she well or
did she ill, order, interest, decent applause." MacLean broke off with a
short, excited laugh. "It was not needed,--his mediation. But he could not
know that; no, nor none of us. True, Stagg and his wife had bragged of the
powers of this strangely found actress of theirs that they were training
to do great things, but folk took it for a trick of their trade. Oh, there
was curiosity enough, but 'twas on Haward's account.... Well, he drank to
her, standing at the head of the table at Marot's ordinary, and the glass
crashed over his shoulder, and we all went to the play."
"Yes, yes!" cried Truelove, breathing quickly, and quite forgetting how
great a vanity was under discussion.
"'Twas 'Tamerlane,' the play that this traitorous generation calls for
every 5th of November. It seems that the Governor--a Whig as rank as
Argyle--had ordered it again for this week. 'Tis a cursed piece of slander
that pictures the Prince of Orange a virtuous Emperor, his late Majesty of
France a hateful tyrant. But for Haward, whose guest I was, I had not sat
there with closed lips. I had sprung to my feet and given those
flatterers, those traducers, the lie! The thing taunted and angered until
she entered. Then I forgot."