Miss West accepted the steamer-chair, the rugs, the wraps, and the
books with unfeigned pleasure, and buried herself in the volumes with
a pertinacity that was discouraging to her ardent wooer. She wearied
of the blue sky and the blue ocean, the everlasting roll of the ship,
the faces of her fellow-voyagers, of everything, as she averred, but
the books. They had a fair and prosperous journey, and every sunny day
Leonora might be seen on deck, but whether walking or sitting, she
had always a book in her hand in whose pages she persistently buried
herself at the approach of any one with whom she was disinclined to
talk. In this discouraging state of things De Vere's wooing sped but
slowly, and Lancaster's acquaintanceship progressed no further than a
ceremonious "Good-morning," "Good-evening," "Can I be of any service
to you?" and similar stilted salutations, to all of which Leonora
replied with a quietness and constraint that put a check on further
conversation. No one could complain that she gave any trouble; she was
quiet, courteous, and gentle, and there were two pairs of eyes that
followed the demure, black-robed figure everywhere upon the deck, and
the owners of the eyes wished, perhaps, that she would call on them for
more attention, more services, so oblivious did she seem of the fact
that they waited assiduously upon her lightest command.
"She is not a little flirt, as I thought at first, seeing her with De
Vere," the captain said to himself. "She is a clever little girl who is
better pleased with the thoughts of clever writers than the society of
two great, trifling fellows such as De Vere and myself. I applaud her
taste."
All the same, he would have been pleased if the pretty face had lighted
sometimes at his coming, if she had seemed to care for talking to him,
if she had even asked him any questions about where she was going.
But she did not manifest any curiosity on the subject. She was a
constrained, chilly little companion always to him. It chagrined him
to see that she was more at her ease with De Vere than with him. Once
or twice she unbent from her lofty height with the lieutenant, smiled,
chatted, even sang to him by moonlight, one night, in a voice as sweet
as her face. But she was very shy, very quiet with the man whose
business it was to convey her to England. She tried faithfully to be as
little of "a bore and nuisance" as possible.
It did not matter; indeed, it was much better so, he told himself, and
yet he chafed sometimes under her peculiar manner. He did not like
to be treated wholly with indifference, did not like to be entirely
ignored, as if she had forgotten him completely.
So one day when De Vere lolled in his state-room, he went and stood
behind her chair where she sat reading. It was one of the poets of his
own land whose book she held in her hand, and the fact emboldened him
to say:
"You like English authors, Miss West. Do you think you shall like
England?"
She lifted the blue-gray eyes calmly to his face.
"No," she replied, concisely.
He flushed a little. It was his own native land. He did not like to
hear her say she should not like it.
"That is a pity, since you are going to make your home there," he said.
"I am not at all sure of that," she answered, putting her white
forefinger between the pages of her book, and turning squarely round to
look at him as he talked. "Perhaps if I can not bring myself to like
England, I may persuade my aunt to come to America with me."
"Lady Lancaster would die of chagrin if you did," he replied, hastily.
He saw a blush color the smooth cheek, and wished that he had thought
before he spoke.
"She is poor and proud. She does not like to be reminded that her aunt
is a servant at Lancaster Park," he said, pityingly, to himself.
And he recalled De Vere's intentions with a sensation of generous
pleasure. Leonora, with her fair face and her cultured mind, would be
lifted by her marriage into the sphere where she rightly belonged. Then
she would like England better.
"I have been reading your poet laureate," she said. "I was much struck
by these lines:
'Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good:
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.'
I should not have thought an English poet would write that," she went
on. "I thought England was too entirely governed by the laws of caste
for one of her people to give free utterance to such a dangerous
sentiment."
"You must not judge us too hardly," he said, hastily.
Ignoring his feeble protest, she continued: "My papa was English, but
he was not of what you call gentle birth, Captain Lancaster. He was the
son of a most unlucky tradesman who died and left him nothing but his
blessing. So papa ran away to America at barely twenty-one. He went to
California to seek his fortune, and he had some good luck and some bad.
When he had been there a year he found a gold nugget that was quite
a fortune to him. So he married then, and when I was born my pretty
young mamma died. After that he lived only for me. We had many ups and
downs--all miners have--sometimes we were quite rich, sometimes very
poor. But I have been what you call well educated. I know Latin and
French and German, and I have studied music. In America, I can move in
quite good society, but in your country--" she paused and fixed her
clear, grave eyes on his face.
"Well?" he said.
"In England," she said, "I shall, doubtless, be relegated to the same
position in society as my aunt, the housekeeper at Lancaster Park. Is
it not so?"
He was obliged to confess that it was true.
"Then is it likely I shall love England?" she said. "No; I am quite
too American for that. Oh, I dare say you are disgusted at me, Captain
Lancaster. You are proud of your descent from a long line of proud
ancestry." She looked down at her book and read on, aloud:
"'I know you're proud to bear your name,
Your pride is yet no mate for mine,
Too proud to care from whence I came.'"
He knew the verse by heart. Some impulse stronger than his will or
reason prompted him to repeat the last two lines, meaningly, gazing
straight into the sparkling, dark-gray eyes with his proud, blue ones:
"'A simple maiden in her flower
Is worth a hundred coats of arms.'"
The gray eyes, brave as they were, could not bear the meaning gaze
of the blue ones. They wavered and fell. The long lashes drooped
against the cheeks that flushed rosy red. She shut up the book with an
impatient sigh, and said, with an effort at self-possession:
"You shall see that I will bring my aunt home to America with me,
Captain Lancaster."
"Perhaps so; and yet I think she loves England--as much, I dare say, as
you do America."
"I hope not, for what should we do in that case? I have only her, she
has only me, and why should we live apart?"
"Do you mean to tell me that you have left behind you no relatives?" he
said.
"I told you I had no one but Aunt West," she said, almost curtly.
"And she can scarcely be called your relative. I believe she was only
your father's sister-in-law," he said.
"That is true," she replied.
"Then why go to her at all, since the kinship is but in name, and you
would be happier in America?" he asked, with something of curiosity.
"Papa wished it," she replied, simply.
Then there was a brief silence. Leonora's lashes drooped, with the dew
of unshed tears on them. The young face looked very sad in the soft
evening light.
"She is almost alone in the world--poor child!" he thought.
"I want to ask you something," he said, impulsively.
"Yes," she said, listlessly.
"Was it because of those things we talked of just now--those
aristocratic prejudices--that you have so severely ignored De Vere and
me?"
"Not exactly," she replied, hesitatingly.
"Then, why?" he asked, gravely.
She looked up into the handsome blue eyes. They were regarding her
very kindly. Something like a sob swelled her throat, but she said, as
calmly as she could:
"I'll tell you the reason, Captain Lancaster. Do you remember the day
we sailed, and what you and Lieutenant De Vere talked of that night
over your cigars?"
"I remember," he replied, with an embarrassment it was impossible to
hide.
The clear eyes looked up straight into his face.
"Well, then," she said, "I heard every word you said to each other
there in the moonlight."