Captain Lancaster was taken at a disadvantage. He was not at all a
vain man. He did not half know how fine looking he was, and his hasty
perusal of the mirror was directed rather to his dress than his face.
But as he turned about hastily and met the half smile on the lips of
the new-comer, he realized instantly that his attitude had favored
strongly of masculine vanity, and a not unbecoming flush mounted to his
good-looking, straight-featured face. He had a sneaking sense of shame
in being caught posing, as it were, before the mirror by this extremely
pretty girl.
She was more than pretty, this girl--she was rarely beautiful. She was
of medium height and size, and her figure was symmetry itself, all its
delicious curves and slender outlines defined at their best by the
close-fitting black jersey waist she wore buttoned up to the graceful
white throat that had a trick of holding itself high, as if innocently
proud of the fair face that shone above it--the face that Captain
Lancaster gazed at in wonder for a moment, and then in the most lively
and decided disapprobation.
For she was much too pretty to be a nurse, he said to himself--too
pretty and too young. She had an air of refinement quite above her
position. She had an arch, pretty face, with beautiful blue-gray eyes
that were almost black when the full white lids and dark lashes drooped
over them. The dazzling fairness of her complexion was heightened by
the unrelieved blackness of her dress, and her pouting lips by contrast
looked like rosebuds. Two long, thick braids of lovely chestnut-brown
hair hung down her back, and some soft, fluffy rings of the same color
waved over the low, broad forehead with its slender, dark brows. She
was not only beautiful, she looked bright and intelligent, and the half
smile that parted her red lips now made her wonderfully lovely.
But pretty as she was, she was aware that Captain Lancaster
was regarding her with knit brows and a general air of entire
disapprobation. Perhaps it was a novel experience. It seemed to amuse
her. The dimples deepened around the sweet, arch mouth. She looked
down at the card in her hand, and began to read it aloud in a soft,
hesitating, inquiring voice: "Cap-tain Lan-caster?"
"Yes," he replied, and was on the point of making his most elegant
bow when he suddenly remembered that it was not at all necessary to
be so ceremonious with the nurse of his housekeeper's niece. So he
straightened himself up again and said, almost tartly:
"You are the baby's nurse, I presume?"
The long fringe of the girl's lashes lifted a moment, and she flashed a
dazzling glance into his face.
"The--baby?" she inquired.
"Yes--the little Miss West--the child that is to get to England under
my care. Aren't you her nurse?"
The young lady had put a very small, white hand up to her face and
coughed very hard for a moment. She looked at him the next moment, very
red in the face from the exertion.
"I--ah, yes, certainly; I'm the nurse," she replied, demurely.
And then ensued a moment's silence, broken at last by the girl, who
said, quietly and politely:
"Won't you be seated, Captain Lancaster?"
He dropped mechanically into a chair near him, but the pretty
nurse-maid remained standing meekly in the center of the room, her
small hands folded before her, a demure look on her fair face.
The caller cleared his throat and began, rather nervously:
"It isn't possible that you expected to go to England as that child's
nurse?" he said.
"I had hoped to do so," answered the girl, with a sudden air of chagrin.
"But--ah--really, you know, you're too young, aren't you?" stammered
Lancaster, feeling abashed, he knew not why, but maintaining a grave,
judicial air.
"Too young? I should hope not. I was eighteen last week," lifting the
small head with an air of great dignity.
He could hardly repress a smile, but he put his long, white hand
hastily across his lips to hide it from those bright, keen eyes.
"And do you think you can really take good care of Miss West?" he said.
"Remember, it is a long trip across the ocean."
She flashed him one of her swift, bright glances.
"Indeed?" she said. "But that does not matter at all, sir. I consider
myself quite competent to take care of Miss West anywhere."
"Does she mean to be impertinent?" he thought; but a glance at
the demure, downcast face reassured him. It was only the high
self-confidence of ignorant, innocent youth.
"You must excuse me; I don't know how they do such things on this side
of the water," he said, feeling mean within himself, yet not at all
understanding why it was so. "But, you see, it is all different in
England. There one chooses a woman of age and experience for a nurse.
Now, I remember my own nurse was at least fifty years old."
"In-deed?" replied the girl, dropping him a demure little courtesy
that somehow again filled him with an uneasy sense that, under all her
pretty humility, she meant to be impertinent. His face felt hot and
burning. He did not know how to pursue the conversation.
Seeing that he made her no answer, she looked up with a pretty,
appealing air. "Do I understand that you object to taking me to
England? that my youth counts against me?" she inquired.
"Oh, no, no; not at all, if you are sure you can take good care of the
baby," he replied, hastily. "You see, the whole thing is a great bore
and nuisance to me. I object most decidedly to being encumbered with
that child, but, most unfortunately for me, I can't get out of it. So,
if you can really be of any use, pray go along with it to England--Oh!"
The sudden exclamation was wrung from him by a glance at her face. The
pretty actress had dropped her mask at hearing those swift, vehement
words of his. A hot color glowed in her face, two pearly tears started
under her dark lashes. She put out her white hands before her as if to
ward off a blow.
"Oh, Captain Lancaster, say no more!" she cried. "There has been some
wretched mistake somewhere, and I have only been laughing at you these
five minutes. I am nobody's nurse at all. There isn't any child nor any
baby. It is a grown-up young lady. I am Leonora West."
Tableau!