"Is that what you are after?" he exclaimed.
"Indeed, Alick, I thought it was the greatest kindness I could do her;
she is so very eager about this plan, and so anxious to find poor Meg a
good home."
"Purely to oblige her?"
"Of course, Alick, it was much more convenient to her than if she had
had to send about to horse-dealers or to advertise. I doubt if she could
have done it at all; and it is for her asylum, you know."
"Then give the coachman's sixty guineas at once."
"Ah, Alick, that's your infatuation!" and she put on a droll gesture of
pity. "But excuse me, where would be the fine edge of delicacy in giving
a manifestly fancy price? Come and look at her."
"I never meddle with horse-dealing."
"Stuff, as if you weren't the best-mounted man in the regiment. I shall
send a note to Captain Sykes if you won't; he knows how to drive a
bargain."
"And give a fancy price the other way. Well, Bessie, on one condition
I'll go, and that is, that Meg goes to Bishopsworthy the day she is
yours. I won't have her eating Lady Temple's corn, and giving her
servants trouble."
"As if I should think of such a thing."
Captain Keith's estimate of the value of the steed precisely agreed with
Rachel's demand of the original price. Bessie laughed, and said there
was collusion.
"Now seriously, Alick, do you think her worth so much? Isn't it a pity,
when you know what a humbug poor Rachel is going to give it to?" and she
looked half comical, half saucy.
"If she were going to throw it into the sea, I don't see what difference
that would make."
"Ah! you are far too much interested. Nothing belonging to her can bear
a vulgar price."
"Nothing belonging to me is to gain profit by her self-denial," said
Alick, gravely. "You cannot do less than give her what she gave for it,
if you enter on the transaction at all."
"You mean that it would look shabby. You see we womankind never quite
know the code of the world on such matters," she said, candidly.
"There is something that makes codes unnecessary, Bessie," he said.
"Ah! I can make allowances. It is a cruel stroke. I don't wonder you
can't bear to see any one else on her palfrey; above all as a sacrifice
to the landscape painter."
"Then spare my feelings, and send the mare to Bishopsworthy," said
Alick, as usual too careless of the imputation to take the trouble to
rebut it or to be disconcerted.
Bessie was much tickled at his acceptance, and laughed heartily.
"To be sure," she said, "it is past concealment now. You must have been
very far gone, indeed, to have been taken in to suppose me to be making
capital of her 'charitable purposes.'"