The Mississippi Bubble Part 6

"How--what--?"

"Yes, how--what--?" repeated his brother, mockingly.

"But I would ask, which?"

"There was but one," said John Law. "The tall one, with the bra.s.sy-brown, copper-red hair, the bright blue eye, and the figure of a queen. Her like is not in all the world!"

"Methought 'twas more like to be the other," replied Will. "Yet you--how dare you think thus of that lady? Why, Jack, 'twas the Lady Catharine Knollys, sister to the Earl of Banbury!"

Law did not at once make any answer. He turned to the dressing-table and began making such s.h.i.+ft as he could to better his appearance.

"Will," said he, at length, "you are, as ever, a babe and a suckling. I quite despair of you. 'Twould serve no purpose to explain anything to so faint a heart as yours. But you may come with me."

"And whither?"

"Whither? Where else, than to the residence of this same lady! Look you, I have learned this. She is, as you say, the sister of the Earl of Banbury, and is for the time at the town house in Knightwell Terrace.

Moreover, if that news be worth while to so white-feathered a swain as yourself, the other, damsel, the dark one--the one with the mighty pretty little foot--lives there for the time as the guest of Lady Catharine. They are rated thick as peas in a pod. True, we are strangers, yet I venture we have made a beginning, and if we venture more we may better that beginning. Should I falter, when luck gave me the run of _trente et le va_ but yesterday? Nay, ever follow fortune hard, and she waits for you."

"Yes," said Will, scornfully. "You would get the name of gambler, and add to it the name of fortune-hunting, heiress-seeking adventurer."

"Not so," replied John Law, taking snuff calmly and still keeping the evenness of his temper. "My own fortune, as I admit, I keep safe at the Green Lion. For the rest, I seek at the start only respectful footing with this maid herself. When first I saw her, I knew well enough how the end would be. We were made for each other. This whole world was made for us both. Will, boy, I could not live without the Lady Catharine Knollys!"

"Oh, cease such talk, Jack! 'Tis ill-mannered, such presumption regarding a lady, even had you known her long. Besides, 'tis but another of your fancies, Jack," said Will. "Wilt never make an end of such follies?"

"Yes, my boy," said his brother, gravely. "I have made an end. Indeed, I made it the other morning at Sadler's Wells."

"Methinks," said Will, dryly, "that it might be well first to be sure that you can win past the front door of the house of Knollys."

John Law still kept both his temper and his confidence.

"Come with me," said he, blithely, "and I will show you how that thing may be done."

CHAPTER VII

TWO MAIDS A-BROIDERING

"Now a plague take all created things, Lady Kitty!" cried Mary Connynge, petulantly flinging down a silken pattern over which she had pretended to be engaged. "There are devils in the skeins to-day. I'll try no more with't."

"Fie! For shame, Mary Connynge," replied Lady Catharine Knollys, reprovingly. "So far from better temperance of speech, didst ever hear of the virtue of perseverance? Now, for my own part--"

"And what, for your own part? Have I no eyes to see that thou'rt puttering over the same corner this last half hour? What is it thou art making to-day?"

The Lady Catharine paused for a moment and held her embroidery frame away from her at arm's length, looking at it with brow puckering into a perplexed frown.

"I was working a knight," said she. "A tall one--"

"Yes, a tall one, with yellow hair, I warrant."

"Why, so it was. I was but seeking floss of the right hue, and found it difficult."

"And with blue eyes?"

"True; or perhaps gray. I could not state which. I had naught in my box would serve to suit me for the eyes. But how know you this, Mary Connynge?" asked the Lady Catharine.

"Because I was making some such knight for myself," replied the other.

"See! He was to have been tall, of good figure, wearing a wide hat and plume withal. But lest I spoil him, my knight--now a plague take me indeed if I do not ruin him complete!" So saying, she drew with vengeful fingers at the intricately woven silks until she had indeed undone all that had gone before.

"Nay, nay! Mary Connynge! Do not so!" replied Lady Catharine in expostulation. "The poor knight, how could he help himself? Why, as for mine, though I find him not all I could wish, I'll e'en be patient as I may, and seek if I may not mend him. These knights, you know, are most difficult. 'Tis hard to make them perfect."

Mary Connynge sat with her hands in her lap, looking idly out of the window and scarce heeding the despoiled fabric which lay on her lap.

"Come, confess, Lady Kitty," said she at length, turning toward her friend. "Wert not trying to copy a knight of a hedge-row after all? Did not a certain tall young knight, with eyes of blue, or gray, or the like, give pattern for your sampler while you were broidering to-day?"

"Fie! For shame!" again replied Lady Catharine, flus.h.i.+ng none the less.

"Rather ask, does not such a thought come over thine own broidering? But as to the hedge-row, surely the gentleman explained it all proper enough; and I am sure--yes, I am very sure--that my brother Charles had quite approved of my giving the injured young man the lift in the coach--"

"Provided that your Brother Charles had ever heard of such a thing!"

"Well, of that, to be sure, why trouble my brother over such a trifle, when 'twas so obviously proper?" argued Lady Catharine, bravely. "And certainly, if we come to knights and the like, good chivalry has ever demanded succor for those in distress; and if, forsooth, it was two damsels in a comfortable coach, who rescued two knights from underneath a hedge-row, why, such is but the way of these modern days, when knights go seeking no more for adventures and ladies fair; as you very well know."

"As I do not know, Lady Catharine," replied Mary Connynge. "To the contrary, 'twould not surprise me to learn that he would not shrink from any adventure which might offer."

"You mean--that is--you mean the tall one, him who said he was Mr. Law of Lauriston?"

"Well, perhaps. Though I must say," replied Mary Connynge, with indirection, "that I fancy the other far more, he being not so forward, nor so full of pure conceit. I like not a man so confident." This with an eye cast down, as much as though there were present in the room some man subject to her coquetry.

"Why, I had not found him offering such an air," replied Lady Catharine, judicially. "I had but thought him frank enough, and truly most courteous."

"Why, truly," replied Mary Connynge. "But saw you naught in his eye?"

"Why, but that it was blue, or gray," replied Lady Catharine.

"Oh, ho! then my lady did look a bit, after all! And so this is why the knight flourisheth so bravely in silks to-day--Fie! but a mere adventurer, Lady Kitty. He says he is Law of Lauriston; but what proof doth he offer? And did he find such proof, it is proof of what? For my part, I did never hear of Lauriston nor its owner."

"Ah, but that I have, to the contrary," said Lady Catharine. "John Law's father was a goldsmith, and it was he who bought the properties of Lauriston and Randleston. And so far from John Law being ill-born, why, his mother was Jean Campbell, kinswoman of the Campbell, Duke of Argyll; and a mighty important man is the Duke of Argyll these days, I may tell you, as the king's army hath discovered before this. You see, I have not talked with my brother about these things for naught."

"So you make excuse for this Mr. Law of Lauriston," said Mary Connynge.

"Well, I like better a knight who comes on his own horse, or in his own chariot, and who rescues me when I am in trouble, rather than asks me to give him aid. But, as to that, what matter? We set those highway travelers down, and there was an end of it. We shall never see either of them again."

"Of course not," said Lady Catharine.

"It were impossible."

"Oh, quite impossible!"