"How long do you mean to sit there then?" she asked.
"If your ladyship wouldn't mind riding home without me, I would give her a good half hour of it. I always do when she throws herself over like that. – I've gat my Epictetus?" he asked himself feeling in his coat pocket.
"Do as you please," answered his mistress. "Let me see you when you get home. I should like to know you are safe."
"Thank you, my lady; there's little fear of that," said Malcolm.
Florimel returned to the gentlemen, and they rode homewards. On the way she said suddenly to the earl,
"Can you tell me, Liftore, who Epictetus was?"
"I'm sure I don't know," answered his lordship. "One of the old fellows."
She turned to Lenorme. Happily the Christian heathen was not altogether unknown to the painter.
"May I inquire why your ladyship asks?" he said, when he had told all he could at the moment recollect.
"Because," she answered, "I left my groom sitting on his horse's head reading Epictetus."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Liftore. "Ha! ha! ha! In the original, I suppose!"
"I don't doubt it," said Florimel.
In about two hours Malcolm reported himself. Lord Liftore had gone home, they told him. The painter fellow, as Wallis called him, had stayed to lunch, but was now gone also, and Lady Lossie was alone in the drawing room.
She sent for him.
"I am glad to see you safe, MacPhail," she said. "It is clear your Kelpie – don't be alarmed; I am not going to make you part with her – but it is clear she won't always do for you to attend me upon. Suppose now I wanted to dismount and make a call, or go into a shop?"
"There's a sort of a friendship between your Abbot and her, my lady; she would stand all the better if I had him to hold."
"Well, but how would you put me up again?"
"I never thought of that, my lady. Of course I daren't let you come near Kelpie."
"Could you trust yourself to buy another horse to ride after me about town?"
"No, my lady, not without a ten days' trial. If lies stuck like London mud, there's many a horse would never be seen again. But there's Mr Lenorme! If he would go with me, I fancy between us we could do pretty well."
"Ah! a good idea," returned his mistress. "But what makes you think of him?" she added, willing enough to talk about him.
"The look of the gentleman and his horse together, and what I heard him say," answered Malcolm.
"What did you hear him say?"
"That he knew he had to treat horses something like human beings. I've often fancied, within the last few months, that God does with some people something like as I do with Kelpie."
"I know nothing about theology."
"I don't fancy you do, my lady; but this concerns biography rather than theology. No one could tell what I meant except he had watched his own history, and that of people he knew."
"And horses too?"
"It's hard to get at their insides, my lady, but I suspect it must be so. I'll ask Mr Graham."
"What Mr Graham?"
"The schoolmaster of Portlossie."
"Is he in London, then?"
"Yes, my lady. He believed too much to please the presbytery, and they turned him out."
"I should like to see him. He was very attentive to my father on his death bed."
"Your ladyship will never know till you are dead yourself what Mr Graham did for my lord."
"What do you mean? What could he do for him?"
"He helped him through sore trouble of mind, my lady."
Florimel was silent for a little, then repeated, "I should like to see him. I ought to pay him some attention. Couldn't I make them give him his school again?"
"I don't know about that, my lady; but I am sure he would not take it against the will of the presbytery."
"I should like to do something for him. Ask him to call."
"If your ladyship lays your commands upon me," answered Malcolm; "otherwise I would rather not."
"Why so, pray?"
"Because, except he can be of any use to you, he will not come."
"But I want to be of use to him."
"How, if I may ask, my lady?"
"That I can't exactly say on the spur of the moment. I must know the man first – especially if you are right in supposing he would not enjoy a victory over the presbytery. I should. He wouldn't take money, I fear."
"Except it came of love or work, he would put it from him as he would brush the dust from his coat."
"I could introduce him to good society. That is no small privilege to one of his station."
"He has more of that and better than your ladyship could give him. He holds company with Socrates and St. Paul, and greater still."
"But they're not like living people."
"Very like them, my lady – only far better company in general. But Mr Graham would leave Plato himself – yes, or St. Paul either, though he were sitting beside him in the flesh, to go and help any old washerwoman that wanted him."
"Then I want him."
"No, my lady, you don't want him."
"How dare you say so?"
"If you did, you would go to him."
Florimel's eyes flashed, and her pretty lip curled. She turned to her writing table, annoyed with herself that she could not find a fitting word wherewith to rebuke his presumption – rudeness, was it not? – and a feeling of angry shame arose in her, that she, the Marchioness of Lossie, had not dignity enough to prevent her own groom from treating her like a child. But he was far too valuable to quarrel with.
She sat down and wrote a note.
"There," she said, "take that note to Mr Lenorme. I have asked him to help you in the choice of a horse."
"What price would you be willing to go to, my lady?"
"I leave that to Mr Lenorme's judgment – and your own," she added.
"Thank you, my lady," said Malcolm, and was leaving the room, when Florimel called him back.
"Next time you see Mr Graham," she said, "give him my compliments, and ask him if I can be of any service to him."
"I'll do that, my lady. I am sure he will take it very kindly."
Florimel made no answer, and Malcolm went to find the painter.
CHAPTER XXIII: PAINTER AND GROOM
The address upon the note Malcolm had to deliver took him to a house in Chelsea – one of a row of beautiful old houses fronting the Thames, with little gardens between them and the road. The one he sought was overgrown with creepers, most of them now covered with fresh spring buds. The afternoon had turned cloudy, and a cold east wind came up the river, which, as the tide was falling, raised little waves on its surface and made Malcolm think of the herring. Somehow, as he went up to the door, a new chapter of his life seemed about to commence.
The servant who took the note, returned immediately, and showed him up to the study, a large back room, looking over a good sized garden, with stables on one side. There Lenorme sat at his easel.
"Ah!" he said, "I'm glad to see that wild animal has not quite torn you to pieces. Take a chair. What on earth made you bring such an incarnate fury to London?"
"I see well enough now, sir, she's not exactly the one for London use, but if you had once ridden her, you would never quite enjoy another between your knees."
"She's