iculate love.

Into the wine-shop there came a French gentleman, arrayed in the last
refinement of the fashion, though a little tumbled by his passage in the
wind. It was to be judged he had come from the same formal gathering at
which the others had preceded him; and perhaps that he had gone there in
the hope to meet with them, for he came up to Ballantrae with
unceremonious eagerness.

"At last, here you are!" he cried in French. "I thought I was to miss
you altogether."

The Scotsmen rose, and Ballantrae, after the first greetings, laid his
hand on his companion's shoulder.

"My lord," said he, "allow me to present to you one of my best friends
and one of our best soldiers, the Lord Viscount Gladsmuir."

The two bowed with the elaborate elegance of the period.

"_Monseigneur_," said Balmile, "_je n'ai pas la pretention de m'affubler
d'un titre que la mauvaise fortune de mon roi ne me permet pas de porter
comme il sied. Je m'appelle, pour vous servir, Blair de Balmile tout
court._" [My lord, I have not the effrontery to cumber myself with a
title which the ill fortunes of my king will not suffer me to bear the
way it should be. I call myself, at your service, plain Blair of
Balmile.]

"_Monsieur le Vicomte ou monsieur Bler' de Balmail_," replied the
new-comer, "_le nom n'y fait rien et l'on connait vos beaux faits._"
[The name matters nothing, your gallant actions are known.]

A few more ceremonies, and these three, sitting down together to the
table, called for wine. It was the happiness of Marie-Madeleine to wait
unobserved upon the prince of her desires. She poured the wine, he drank
of it; and that link between them seemed to her, for the moment, close
as a caress. Though they lowered their tones, she surprised great names
passing in their conversation, names of kings, the names of de Gesvre
and Belle-Isle; and the man who dealt in these high matters, and she who
was now coupled with him in her own thoughts, seemed to swim in mid air
in a transfiguration. Love is a crude core, but it has singular and
far-reaching fringes; in that passionate attraction for the stranger
that now swayed and mastered her, his harsh incomprehensible language,
and these names of grandees in his talk, were each an element.

The Frenchman stayed not long, but it was plain he left behind him
matter of much interest to his companions; they spoke together
earnestly, their heads down, the woman of the wine-shop totally
forgotten; a