I felt most deeply my common clay.  What had I to offer for the heart of that proud lady?  A dingy and battered merchant might as well enter a court of steel-clad heroes and contend for the love of a queen.  But I was not downcast.  I do not think I even wanted to hope.  It was enough to know that so bright a thing was in the world, for at one stroke my drab horizon seemed to have broadened into the infinite heavens.

The song ended in another chorus of “Bravas.”  “Bring twenty candles, Pompey,” my host called out, “and the great punch-bowl.  We will pledge my lady in the old Beverley brew.”

Servants set on the table a massive silver dish, into which sundry bottles of wine and spirits were poured.  A mass of cut fruit and sugar was added, and the whole was set alight, and leaped almost to the ceiling in a blue flame.  Colonel Beverley, with a long ladle, filled the array of glasses on a salver, which the servants carried round to the guests.  Large branching candelabra had meantime been placed on the table, and in a glow of light we stood to our feet and honoured the toast.

As I stood up and looked to the table’s end, I saw the dark, restless eyes and the heavy blue jowl of Governor Nicholson.  He saw me, for I was alone at the bottom end, and when we were seated, he cried out to me,—­

“What news of trade, Mr. Garvald?  You’re an active packman, for they tell me you’re never off the road.”

At the mention of my name every eye turned towards me, and I felt, rather than saw, the disfavour of the looks.  No doubt they resented a storekeeper’s intrusion into well-bred company, and some were there who had publicly cursed me for a meddlesome upstart.  But I was not looking their way, but at the girl who sat on my host’s right hand, and in whose dark eyes I thought I saw a spark of recognition.

She was clad in white satin, and in her hair and bosom spring flowers had been set.  Her little hand played with the slim glass, and her eyes had all the happy freedom of childhood.  But now she was a grown woman, with a woman’s pride and knowledge of power.  Her exquisite slimness and grace, amid the glow of silks and silver, gave her the air of a fairy-tale princess.  There was a grave man in black sat next her, to whom she bent to speak.  Then she looked towards me again, and smiled with that witching mockery which had pricked my temper in the Canongate Tolbooth.

The Governor’s voice recalled me from my dream.

“How goes the Indian menace, Mr. Garvald?” he cried.  “You must know,” and he turned to the company, “that our friend combines commerce with high policy, and shares my apprehensions as to the safety of the dominion.”

I could not tell whether he was mocking at me or not.  I think he was, for Francis Nicholson’s moods were as mutable as the tides.  In every word of his there lurked some sour irony.

The company took the speech for satire, and many laughed.  One young gentleman, who wore a purple coat and a splendid brocaded vest, laughed very loud.