"
For Mr Cupples had feared, from the expression of Alec's face, that he
had given him offence in return. A silence of a few seconds followed,
which Alec gladly broke.
"Are you still acting as librarian, Mr Cupples?" he said.
"Ay. I'm actin' _as_ librarian," returned Cupples dryly. "And I'm
thinkin'," he added, "that the buiks are beginnin' to ken by this time
what they're aboot; for sic a throuither disjaskit midden o' lere, I
never saw. Ye micht hae taicklet it wi' a graip" (_a three-pronged
fork_, a sort of agricultural trident). "Are ye gaun to tak' the
cheemistry alang wi' the naiteral philoasophy?"
"Ay."
"Weel, ye jist come to me, as ye hae done afore. I'm no sae gude at
thae things as I am at the Greek; but I ken mair already nor ye'll ken
whan ye ken a' 'at ye will ken. And that's nae flattery either to you
or me, man."
With beating heart, Alec knocked the next day at Mr Fraser's door, and
was shown into the drawing-room, where sat Kate alone. The moment he
saw her, he knew that there was a gulf between them as wide as the
Glamour in a spate. She received him kindly, nor was there anything in
her manner or speech by which he could define an alteration; and yet,
with that marvellous power of self-defence, that instinctive knowledge
of spirituo-military engineering with which maidens are gifted, she had
set up such a palisade between them, dug such a fosse, and raised such
a rampart, that without knowing how the effect was produced, he felt
that he could not approach her.
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