Countess Peggy sat in the drawing-room of her lord's handsome house in Edinburgh and measured out tea with a heavy rat-tailed spoon.
It was a fine chamber with smooth polished cream-colored walls and long French windows, hung with flowered curtains of a dull pink; the furniture, black and a little heavy, caught in its clear-cut Jacobean facets the light from the dozen candles in a silver stand that burnt over the tea-table. The Countess wore a purple gown with paniers and a fine lace kerchief fastened with diamonds on her bosom; a screen of drawn red silk stood between her and the fire and cast a glow over her face and neck, lay reflected, too, in the hollow of the shining white and pink cups.
There was a fragrant smell of tea and the gentle hiss of boiling water from the silver kettle; it was a comfortable room, a comfortable hour; the Countess's green eyes were soft with content like a soothed petted cat's before a fire.
Her one companion lay back lazily on a low settee and gazed, rather vacantly, into the fire; he was a slight man with a fretful weak face, pale eyes too full, and a thin irresolute mouth.
He was handsomely dressed, and for all his unprepossessing appearance, carried an air of high lineage, wealth, position and power.
The Countess finished mixing the tea, then glanced at the man opposite; there was impatience and a slow amused scorn in her eyes; she spoke and it was in the tone of one who speaks down to his hearer.
"Cousin," she said, "I am glad to be out of the Hielands—Kilchurn is ower damp and cold this weather."
She handed him his tea and he put out a feeble white hand to take it.
"Ye should pull it down," he said half-peevishly. "I canna ken how ye can live there—I'd as soon step in my grave as live in Inverary in the winter."
His accent was very slight; he had the speech of a man who had lived abroad and learned many tongues.
The Countess Peggy smiled.
"Ye are the first Argyll, cousin," she said, "who has disliked Inverary Castle, and as for pulling down Kilchurn, we're no' intending it. Jock is ower busy building up what the Macdonalds destroy."
Argyll drew closer to the fire, balancing his tea-cup with the anxiety of a man to whom a slop in the saucer would be a disaster.
"I'm weary of the name of. Macdonald, cousin," he said. "I marvel Breadalbane hath let them gain such an upper hand; they should be hanged and done with."
"My lord—that consummation approaches," she answered, hardening, through her smile, at his implied slight to her husband. "’Tis no' the lack o' power but policy has held Jock's hand."
The Earl of Argyll lifted his eyes fretfully.
"Policy! Always this talk of policy! If it had na been for my father's 'policy' in joining Monmouth in '85, he would na have lost his head or the Campbells the Hielands..."
She interrupted.
"But the triumph o' your return, cousin, made full amends for your father's downfall."
He shrugged his shoulders, sipping his tea; he had the manner of a man with a grievance.
"Certainly I return to the Hielands, but what do I find?" he complained. "The Macdonalds overrunning everything, Campbells hanged at sight, my houses gone to ruin—long arrears of rent due and the Stewarts o' Appin, the Camerons, the Macnaughtens, and these cursed Macdonalds refusing to pay a farthing."
The Countess Peggy gave him a bright glance. "We have our chance noo," she said. "Our chance, Cousin Archibald, for our revenge." She offered him as she spoke a little glass dish of macaroons, and he carefully selected one not too sugared before he answered.
"We?" he questioned. "You and Breadalbane have little to complain of—I dinna call to mind any misfortune in your branch."
There was a note of bitterness in his voice; he could not forget that while he had been living in a Dutch garret his cousin Breadalbane had managed to keep even with every government and come out at the end with unimpaired estates and a title as good as his own.
The Countess understood this and smiled.
"Dinna forget that we are Campbells, too," she said. "And we hae had many wrongs frae the Hielands." She tilted the tea-urn with half-shut eyes—"Particularly the Macdonalds," she added.
Argyll looked at her a second.
"Does Breadalbane think they willna' come in?" he asked.
"Cousin, he is sure of it—vera few will."
"Ah!" Argyll gave a luxurious little sigh of satisfaction. "I thought so—I had orders to quarter my regiment at Dunblane—and quietly."
"Orders frae the Master of Stair?"
"Yes."
"He is at Kensington noo?" asked the Countess.