Many times since, in her description of this interview, she told me that she received from him an impression as though he stretched forth his hand and touched her. She said, as well, that the erectness of his body and the fulness of his chest gave him the air of a conqueror who was invincible, while the pallor of his face and the glitter of his eye set him still further apart from anything usual. It seemed a full minute that they stood thus taking notes openly of each other before she spoke again. "I am Nancy Stair," she said quietly. "Ah," the duke returned, coming forward with a smile, "the verse-maker?" "I make verses," Nancy answered. "Which have given me more pleasure than I have the power to tell," the duke responded with a bow. "It is praise indeed, coming from John Montrose, who is no mean poet himself," Nancy said with a smile. "I," the duke returned, "am no poet, Mistress Stair; but I have a 'spunk enough of glee' to enjoy the gift of others." "One might think who overheard us, my lord duke," Nancy broke in with a laugh and the light of humor in her eyes by which she could make another smile at any time, "that we were collegians having a critical discussion. It was not concerning poetry that I came to you to-night, your grace. It was to ask a favor." "Pitcairn said you would come," the duke answered her blandly, taking out his watch and looking at it with a smile. "He said you would come before you went to the Duchess of Gordon's rout. He even named the exact time within a quarter of an hour." "Mr. Pitcairn is a very wonderful man," Nancy returned. "He's a poor hand at description," responded the duke, with a heat of admiration for her in his tone. "It depends somewhat," said Nancy, "upon what he has the describing of." And in this speech the way women know how to belittle an enemy is clearly to be seen. "He can describe a barn to a farmer, a road to a surveyor, or a church to an architect, so that they fall into an ecstasy of admiration of his parts. When it comes to a woman it's a different matter. Mr. Pitcairn doesn't know a woman. He's not, rightly speaking, a man. As Mr. Carmichael says, 'He's just a head.'" "It's a curious head," the duke answers, "a curious head and a very clear one." "A clear head to prosecute; never to defend," Nancy responded; "which leads me to the cause of my visit. I have come to ask for the pardon of Timothy Lapraik." The duke dropped his eyelids, and a strange light shone from under them. "You compliment me, Mistress Stair, in thinking I have the power to undo that which was settled by the law of your country and a jury tried and true. I took no part in the affair; the prosecution was not mine; in a word, the thing is perhaps beyond my power, had I the desire to get him a pardon, which, however, I have not."