Mr. Bowie is asked to walk into Sabina's boudoir (for Claude is out in
the garden), to sit down, and deliver his message: which he does after
a due military salute, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and in a
solemn and sonorous voice.
"Well, madam, it's just this, that his lordship would be very glad to
see ye and Mr. Mellot, for he's vary ill indeed, and that's truth; and
if he winna tell ye the cause, then I will--and it's just a' for love
of this play-acting body here, and more's the pity."
"More's the pity, indeed!"
"And it's my opeenion the puir laddie will just die, if nobody sees to
him; and I've taken the liberty of writing to Major Cawmill mysel', to
beg him to come up and see to him, for it's a pity to see his lordship
cast away, for want of an understanding body to advise him."
"So I am not an understanding body, Bowie?"
"Oh, madam, ye're young and bonny," says Bowie, in a tone in which
admiration is not unmingled with pity.
"Young indeed! Mr. Bowie, do you know that I am almost as old as you?"
"Hoot, hut, hut--" says Bowie, looking at the wax-like complexion and
bright hawk-eyes.
"Really I am. I'm past five-and-thirty this many a day."
"Weel, then, madam, if you'll excuse me, ye're old enough to be wiser
than to let his lordship be inveigled with any such play-acting."
"Really he's not inveigled," says Sabina, laughing. "It is all his own
fault, and I have warned him how absurd and impossible it is.
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