everywhere except at the Great Lady, who was on her knees before him,
waiting to bid him welcome. I could see in the eyes of such of the
mountaineers as were within my range of vision a growing animosity;
so, hoping to keep down any such expression, which I knew would cause
harm to Your Honour and the Voivodin, I looked all round them
straight in their faces with a fixed frown, which, indeed, they
seemed to understand, for they regained, and for the time maintained,
their usual dignified calm. The Voivodin, may I say, bore the trial
wonderfully. No human being could see that she was in any degree
pained or even surprised. Mr. Melton stood looking round him so long
that I had full time to regain my own attitude of calm. At last he
seemed to come back to the knowledge that someone was waiting for
him, and sauntered leisurely forward. There was so much
insolence--mind you, not insolence that was intended to appear as
such--in his movement that the mountaineers began to steal forward.
When he was close up to the Voivodin, and she put out her hand to
take his, he put forward _one finger_! I could hear the intake of
the breath of the men, now close around, for I had moved forward,
too. I thought it would be as well to be close to your guest, lest
something should happen to him. The Voivodin still kept her splendid
self-control. Raising the finger put forward by the guest with the
same deference as though it had been the hand of a King, she bent her
head down and kissed it. Her duty of courtesy now done, she was
preparing to rise, when he put his hand into his pocket, and, pulling
out a sovereign, offered it to her. His valet moved his hand
forward, as if to pull back his arm, but it was too late. I am sure,
Your Honour, that no affront was intended. He doubtless thought that
he was doing a kindness of the sort usual in England when one "tips"
a housekeeper. But all the same, to one in her position, it was an
affront, an insult, open and unmistakable. So it was received by the
mountaineers, whose handjars flashed out as one. For a second it was
so received even by the Voivodin, who, with face flushing scarlet,
and the stars in her eves flaming red, sprang to her feet. But in
that second she had regained herself, and to all appearances her
righteous anger passed away. Stoop