"Perhaps you mean Sir James MacFen," suggested the consul. "He's a
knight. And what did HE say?" he added eagerly.

"Oh, he wrote a most sensible letter," returned the lady, apparently
mollified by the title of Watson's adviser, "saying that there was
little doubt, if any, that if the American McHulishes wanted the old
estate they could get it by the expenditure of a little capital. He
offered to make the trial; that was the compromise they're talking
about. But he didn't say anything about there being no 'Lord' McHulish."

"Perhaps he thought, as you were Americans, you didn't care for THAT,"
said the consul dryly.

"That's no reason why we shouldn't have it if it belonged to us, or we
chose to pay for it," said the lady pertly.

"Then your changed personal relations with Mr. McHulish is the reason
why you hear so little of his progress or his expectations?"

"Yes; but he don't know that they are changed, for we haven't seen him
since we've been here, although they say he's here, and hiding somewhere
about."

"Why should he be hiding?"

The young girl lifted her pretty brows. "Maybe he thinks it's
mysterious. Didn't I tell you he was a crank?" Yet she laughed so
naively, and with such sublime unconsciousness of any reflection on
herself, that the consul was obliged to smile too.