Barra sat still on his chair, looking Wat over with the same calmly amused contempt he had shown throughout. "Ah," he replied, nodding his head, "perhaps it might be as well to let the the application come in the usual way through my chamberlain."
And he was still smiling as Wat Gordon strode down the stairs with anger burning coldly white on his face, and all hell raging in his heart.
Barra turned to Kate to continue his story, but her place was vacant. The girl had inexplicably vanished from the room before Wat's foot had even passed the threshold. She lay now on the little white bed in her own room, her whole frame shaken with sobs, and the hot, bitter tears raining down on the pillow.
Then, for the first time, she knew in her own heart that she was face to face with great unreasoning love, which could neither be banished nor disowned.
"Oh, why," she sobbed, "was he so foolish and wicked? Why did Maisie grow of a sudden so hard and cruel to him? Why must things turn out thus deadly wrong, when they might just as easily have gone right?"
She buried her face in the pillow, and whispered her conclusion to the fine linen of its coverture upon which her tears were falling.
"Yet I love him yes, I love him more than ever for it!" she said, and sank her head deeper, as if to hide her love from her own most secret sight.
CHAPTER X THE DESCENT OF AVERNUS
"Well," he raged, "that at least is ended! They have done with me made their choice. I that stood by them in many bad, old days am cast off for a rogue and a scoundrel because, forsooth, he is an earl and a prince's councillor. Were I but come to my rights, they would not treat me thus! But, because I am only poor Wat Gordon of the Douglas Regiment, I must be grateful for any dog's treatment."
As Wat grew to believe his own silly windy words, he held his head a little higher. And into the poor, angry, foolish boy's heart the devil cast his baited hook. Pride took hold of Wat, and the thought of revenge.
"But, after all, am I not Walter Gordon of Lochinvar," he said, as he strode along, heeding none, "a gentleman at least, and now, in spite of them all, an officer also? If mine own folk and kin think nothing of me in the little lodgings of Zaandpoort Street, I can show them that there are places more famous, where others will make Wat Gordon welcome for his own sake."
At that moment a shouting reveller ruffling it along the street recalled to his mind that he was in the neighborhood of the famous Hostelry of the Coronation, where nightly during the stay of the army at Amersfort all the young bloods of the allied forces met, and where (it was reported) brightest eyes shone across the wine goblet, and daintiest feet danced upon the polished floors. The Inn of the Coronation was held by mine host Sheffell. A score of times it had been closed by the city fathers, but, nevertheless, always with more or less carefully concealed intent of winking hard at its immediate reopening.
And all this was because the burgomeister and magnates of Amersfort looked upon the Inn of the Coronation as a safety-valve for the riotous blades of the city and camp.
"For," said the former to the more sapient of his corporation when he could be private with them, "if the young kerls go not to the Coronation and meet with their like well, we are men and fathers. Like is it that we may have matters on our hands that shall trouble us more deeply. Worse were it if the rascals came rattling their spurs and tagging at the tails of our daughters and our wives."
So the sleep of mine host Sheffell, of the Hostel of the Coronation, was not disturbed by the fear of the city council.
Towards this famous (or, as it might be, infamous) house, therefore, Wat turned his steps. Often the men of his regiment had offered to conduct him thither, but till now Wat had steadfastly refused, with the laugh which meant that he had to do with metal more attractive. For in a camp it does not do to obtain a repute for a too ostentatious virtue.
But to-night Wat Gordon buckled his sword a little tighter, belted his silken orange
sash closer about his new officer's coat, swung his cloak back in a more becoming fashion, twirled his mustache, passed his fingers lightly through his crisp, fair curls, and strode with jingle of huge cavalry spurs into the Hostel of the Coronation, through whose portals (safe it is to say) no more proper or desirable young man had passed that night.
Great Sheffell himself was on the watch, and greeted the young officer with profoundest courtesy. Wat vouchsafed him hardly a nod, but marched straight into a great crowded room, which hummed about him, riant with gay noise and the spangle of silver and glass.
The main guest-chamber of the Coronation was a long, fairly wide, white-panelled room, divided at the sides into more private compartments by curtains hung upon rows of pillars. The more favored guests sat at small tables in the alcoves, and were waited on by girls attired in scarlet blouse and short embroidered silk kirtle, whose dainty hose of orange and black twinkled underneath as they passed deftly to and fro with glass and platter.