"I am," said The McTavish. "Mrs. Nevis is my name."
She stepped into the open, and, jangling her keys occasionally, led him along an almost interminable path of green turf bordered by larkspur and flowering sage, which ended at last at a somewhat battered lead statue of Atlas, crowning a pudding-shaped mound of turf.
"When the Red Currie sacked Brig O'Dread Castle," said The McTavish, "he dug a pit here and flung the dead into it. There will be McTavishes among them."
"There are no inscriptions," said the gentleman.
"Those are in the chapel," said The McTavish. "This way." And she swung into another turf walk, long, wide, springy, and bordered by birches.
"Tell me," said the American, "is it true that Miss McTavish is down on strangers?"
She looked at him over her shoulder. He still wore his enigmatic smile.
"I don't know what got into her," she said, "to let you in." She halted in her tracks and, looking cautiously this way and that, like a conspirator in a play: "She's a hard woman to deal with," she said, "between you and me."
"I've heard something of the kind," said the American. "Indeed, I asked the porter. I said, 'What manner of woman is Miss McTavish?' and he said, in a kind of whisper, 'The McTavish, sir, is a roaring, ranting, stingy, bony female.'"
"He said that, did he?" asked the pseudo Mrs. Nevis, tightening her lips and jangling her keys.
"But I didn't believe him," said the American; "I wouldn't believe what he said of any cousin of mine."
"Why, yes," said he; "but just which one I don't know. That's what I have come to find out. I have an idea--I and my lawyers have--that if The McTavish died without a direct heir, I should be The McTavish; that is, that this nice castle, and Red Curries Mound, and all and all, would be mine. I could come every August for the shooting. It would be very nice."
"It wouldn't be very nice for The McTavish to die before you," said Mrs. Nevis. "She's only twenty-two."
"Great heavens!" said the American. "Between you, you made me think she was a horrid old woman!"
"Horrid," said Mrs. Nevis, "very. But not old."
She led the way abruptly to a turf circle which ended the birch walk and from which sprang, in turn, a walk of larch, a walk of Lebanon cedars, and one of mountain ash. At the end of the cedar walk, far off, could be seen the squat gray tower of the chapel, heavy with ivy. McTavish caught up with Mrs. Nevis and walked at her side. Their feet made no sound upon the pleasant, springy turf. Only the bunch of keys sounded occasionally.