Tales and Fantasies | Page 5

of regret; that young lady was worthy of better things
than plain John Nicholson, still known among schoolmates by the
derisive name of 'Fatty'; and he felt, if he could chalk a cue, or stand at
ease, with such a careless grace as Alan, he could approach the object
of his sentiments with a less crushing sense of inferiority.
Before they parted, Alan made a proposal that was startling in the
extreme. He would be at Colette's that night about twelve, he said. Why
should not John come there and get the money? To go to Colette's was
to see life, indeed; it was wrong; it was against the laws; it partook, in a
very dingy manner, of adventure. Were it known, it was the sort of
exploit that disconsidered a young man for good with the more serious
classes, but gave him a standing with the riotous. And yet Colette's was
not a hell; it could not come, without vaulting hyperbole, under the
rubric of a gilded saloon; and, if it was a sin to go there, the sin was
merely local and municipal. Colette (whose name I do not know how to
spell, for I was never in epistolary communication with that hospitable
outlaw) was simply an unlicensed publican, who gave suppers after
eleven at night, the Edinburgh hour of closing. If you belonged to a
club, you could get a much better supper at the same hour, and lose not
a jot in public esteem. But if you lacked that qualification, and were an
hungered, or inclined toward conviviality at unlawful hours, Colette's
was your only port. You were very ill-supplied. The company was not
recruited from the Senate or the Church, though the Bar was very well
represented on the only occasion on which I flew in the face of my
country's laws, and, taking my reputation in my hand, penetrated into
that grim supper- house. And Colette's frequenters, thrillingly
conscious of wrong-doing and 'that two-handed engine (the policeman)
at the door,' were perhaps inclined to somewhat feverish excess. But
the place was in no sense a very bad one; and it is somewhat strange to
me, at this distance of time, how it had acquired its dangerous repute.
In precisely the same spirit as a man may debate a project to ascend the
Matterhorn or to cross Africa, John considered Alan's proposal, and,
greatly daring, accepted it. As he walked home, the thoughts of this

excursion out of the safe places of life into the wild and arduous, stirred
and struggled in his imagination with the image of Miss Mackenzie -
incongruous and yet kindred thoughts, for did not each imply unusual
tightening of the pegs of resolution? did not each woo him forth and
warn him back again into himself?
Between these two considerations, at least, he was more than usually
moved; and when he got to Randolph Crescent, he quite forgot the four
hundred pounds in the inner pocket of his greatcoat, hung up the coat,
with its rich freight, upon his particular pin of the hatstand; and in the
very action sealed his doom.

CHAPTER II
- IN WHICH JOHN REAPS THE WHIRLWIND

ABOUT half-past ten it was John's brave good fortune to offer his arm
to Miss Mackenzie, and escort her home. The night was chill and starry;
all the way eastward the trees of the different gardens rustled and
looked black. Up the stone gully of Leith Walk, when they came to
cross it, the breeze made a rush and set the flames of the street-lamps
quavering; and when at last they had mounted to the Royal Terrace,
where Captain Mackenzie lived, a great salt freshness came in their
faces from the sea. These phases of the walk remained written on
John's memory, each emphasised by the touch of that light hand on his
arm; and behind all these aspects of the nocturnal city he saw, in his
mind's-eye, a picture of the lighted drawing-room at home where he
had sat talking with Flora; and his father, from the other end, had
looked on with a kind and ironical smile. John had read the significance
of that smile, which might have escaped a stranger. Mr. Nicholson had
remarked his son's entanglement with satisfaction, tinged by humour;
and his smile, if it still was a thought contemptuous, had implied
consent.
At the captain's door the girl held out her hand, with a certain emphasis;
and John took it and kept it a little longer, and said, 'Good-night, Flora,
dear,' and was instantly thrown into much fear by his presumption. But
she only laughed, ran up the steps, and rang the bell; and while she was
waiting for the door to open, kept close in the porch, and talked to him

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