Fiction > Book editions > London, 1889 - Master of Ballantrae

PASSAGES AT NLW YOKK. 269
" 1 fear ukl ai^e ami poverty," said I, " which is
another matter."
" I will never quarrel for a name. Call it so/' he
replied. ''Ah ! Mackellar, Mackellar, if this were done
from any love to me, how gladly would I close upon
your offer ! "
"And yet," I eag-erly answered— " I say it to ni}'
shame, but I cannot see you in this poor place without
compunction. It is not my single thought, nor my
first; and yet it's there ! I would gladly see you de-
livered. I do not offer it in love, and far from that ;
Lut, as God judges me — and I wonder at it too ! — cpiite
without enmity."
" Ah ! " says he, still holding my shoulders, and now
gently shaking me, " you think of me more than you
suppose. ' And I wonder at it too/ " he added, repeating
my expression and, I suppose, something of my voice.
" You are an honest man, and for that cause I spare you."
" Spare me ? " I cried.
" Spare you," he repeated, letting me go and turnino-
away. And then, fronting me once more: ''You little
know what I would do with it, Mackellar ! Did vou
think I had swallowed my defeat indeed ? Listen : my
life has been a series of unmerited east-backs. That
fool, Prince Charlie, mismanaged a most promisiuo*
affair : there fell my first fortune. lu Paris I had my
foot once more high upon the ladder : that time it was
an accident ; a letter came to the wrong hand, and I was