Fiction > Book editions > New York, 1889 - Master of Ballantrae

PASSAGES AT NEW YORK. 269
"I fear old age and 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 nie, how gladly would I close upon
your offer ! "
"And yet," I eagerly answered — "I say it to my
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 deliv-
ered. I do not offer it in love, and far from that ; but
as God judges me — and I wonder at it too ! — quite with-
out 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, repeat-
ing my expression and I suppose something of my voice.
' ' You are an honest man, and for that cause I spare you."
"Spare me ?" I ci'ied.
" Spare you," he repeated, letting me go and turning
away. And then, fronting me once more : "You little
know what I would do with it, Mackellar ! Did you
think I had svvallowed my defeat indeed ? Listen : my
life has been a series of unmerited cast-backs. That
fool. Prince Charlie, mismanaged a most promising
affair : there fell my first fortune. In 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