For the second time since he had met Leonora West, Captain Lancaster
devoutly wished that the earth would open and hide him from the sight
of those gray-blue eyes.
"I heard every word," she repeated, and his memory flew back anxiously
to that night.
"Oh, impossible!" he cried. "You had retired. We were alone."
The fair cheek flushed warmly.
"I shall have to confess," she said. "But you must not judge me too
hardly, Captain Lancaster."
He looked at her expectantly.
"I will tell you the truth," she said. "I went early to my state-room,
because I was tired of Lieutenant De Vere. I wanted to be alone. But
it was so warm and close in my room, I could not breathe freely. So I
threw a dark shawl over me and went out on deck again. There was no one
there. I slipped around in the shadow of the wheel-house and sat down."
"And then we came--De Vere and I," said Lancaster.
"Yes," she replied. "I was frightened at first, and shrank closer into
the darkness. I did not want to be found out. I thought you would smoke
your cigars and go away in a little while."
There was a minute's silence.
"I wish I had been a thousand miles away!" the captain thought,
ruefully, to himself.
"So then you commenced to talk about me," continued Leonora. "I ought
not to have listened, I know, but I could not make up my mind to
interrupt you; it would have been so embarrassing, you know. So I kept
still, hoping you would stop every minute, and thus I heard all."
"You heard nothing but kindness--you must grant that, at least," he
said.
The red lips curled at the corners, whether with anger or feeling he
could not tell.
"You were very condescending," she said, in a quiet, very demure little
voice.
"Now, you wrong us--you do, indeed, Miss West," he cried, hotly. "We
said the kindest things of you. You must own that Lieutenant De Vere
paid you the highest compliment man can pay to woman."
A beautiful blush rose into the fair face, and her eyes drooped a
moment.
"While we are upon the subject," he continued, hastily, "let me speak
a word for my friend, Miss West. He is quite in earnest in his love
for you, and you would do well to listen to his suit. He is in every
way an unexceptionable suitor. There is everything in favor of him,
personally, and he is of good birth, is the heir to a title, and last,
but not least, has ten thousand a year of his own."
"Enough to buy him a more fitting bride than Mrs. West's niece," she
said, with some bitterness, but more mirth, in her voice.
"Who could be more fitting than the one he has chosen?" asked Lancaster.
"It would be a _mésalliance_," she said, with her eyes full on his face
as she quoted his words.
"In the world's eyes--yes," he answered, quietly. "But if you love him
and he loves you, you need not care for the world," he said; and he
felt the whole force of the words as he spoke them. He said to himself
that any man who could afford to snap his fingers at fortune and marry
Leonora West would be blessed.
She listened to his words calmly, and with an air of thoughtfulness, as
if she were weighing them in her mind.
"And so," she said, when he had ceased speaking, "you advise me,
Captain Lancaster, to follow up the good impression I have made on your
friend, and to--to fall into his arms as soon as he asks me?"
He gave a gasp as if she had thrown cold water over him.
"Pray do not understand me as advising anything!" he cried, hastily. "I
merely showed you the advantages of such a marriage; but, of course, I
have no personal interest in the matter. I am no match-maker."
"No, of course not," curtly; then, with a sudden total change of the
subject, she said: "Aren't we very near the end of our trip, Captain
Lancaster?"
"You are tired?" he asked.
"Yes. It grows monotonous after the first day or two out," she replied.
"You might have had a better time if you had let De Vere and me amuse
you," he said.
"Oh, I have been amused," she replied, frankly; and he wondered within
himself what had amused her, but did not ask. She had a trick of saying
things that chagrined him, because he did not understand them, and had
a lingering suspicion that she was laughing at him.
"We shall see the end of our journey to-morrow, if we have good luck,"
he said, and she uttered an exclamation of pleasure.
"So soon? Ah, how glad I am! I wonder," reflectively, "what my aunt
will think about me."
"She will be astonished, for one thing," he replied.
"Why?"
"Because I think she is expecting a child. She will be surprised to see
a young lady."
"Poor papa!" a sigh; "he always called me his little girl. That is how
the mistake has been made. Ah, Captain Lancaster, I can not tell you
how much I miss my father!"
There was a tremor in the young voice. His heart thrilled with pity for
her loneliness.
"I hope your aunt will be so kind to you that she will make up to you
for his loss," he said.
"Tell me something about her," said Leonora.
"I am afraid I can not tell you much," he answered, with some
embarrassment. "She is a good woman. I have heard Lady Lancaster say
that much."
"Of course, you can not be expected to know much about a mere
housekeeper," with a distinct inflection of bitterness in her voice.
"Well, then, tell me about Lady Lancaster. Who is she?"
"She is the mistress of Lancaster Park."
"Is she nice?"
"She is old and ugly and cross and very rich. Is all that nice, as you
define it?"
"No; only the last. It is nice to be rich, of course. That goes without
saying. Well, then, is there a master?"
"A master?" vaguely.
"Of Lancaster Park, I mean."
"Oh, yes."
"And is he old and ugly and cross and rich?" pursued Miss West,
curiously.
"He is all but the last," declared Lancaster, unblushingly. "He is as
poor as Job's turkey. That is not nice, is it?"
"I know some people who are poor, but very, very nice," said the girl,
with a decided air.
"I am glad to hear you say so. I am very poor myself. I have been
thinking that the reason you have snubbed me so unmercifully of late is
because I so foolishly gave myself away when I first met you."
"Gave yourself away?" uncomprehendingly.
"I mean I told you I was poor. I beg your pardon for the slang phrase
I used just now. One falls unconsciously into such habits in the army.
But tell me, did you?"
"Did I do what?"
"Did you snub me because I am poor?"
"I have not snubbed you at all," indignantly.
"You have ignored me. That is even worse," he said.
"Indeed I have not ignored you at all," she protested.
"Well, then, you forgot me. That is the unkindest cut of all. I could
bear to be snubbed, but I hate to be totally annihilated," said he,
with a grieved air.
She pursed her pretty lips and remained silent.
"Now you want me to go away, I see," he remarked. "This is the first
time you have let me talk to you since we came aboard, and already you
are weary."
"Yes, I am already weary," she echoed.
She put her little hand over her lips and yawned daintily but
deliberately.
Burning with chagrin, he lifted his hat to her and walked away.
"I can never speak to her but she makes me repent," he said to himself,
and went and leaned moodily against the side, while he continued to
himself: "What a little thorn she is, and how sharply she can wound."
Leonora watched the retreating figure a moment, then leisurely opened
her book again and settled herself to read. But she was not very deeply
interested, it seemed, for now and then she glanced up under her long
lashes at the tall, moveless figure of the soldier. At length she put
down the book and went across to him.
Gazing intently out to sea, he started when a hand soft and white as
a snow-flake fluttered down upon his coat-sleeve. He glanced quickly
around.
"Miss West!" he exclaimed, in surprise.
She glanced up deprecatingly into his face.
"I--I was rude to you just now," she stammered. "I beg your pardon for
it. I--I really don't know why I was so. I don't dislike you, indeed,
and I think you are very nice. I have enjoyed the chair and the books,
and I have been sorry ever since that day when I came down to the
steamer and did not wait for you. But--somehow--it was very hard to
tell you so."
She had spoken every word with a delightful shyness, and after a pause,
she went on, with a catch in her breath:
"As for your being poor, I never thought of that--never. I think poor
men are the nicest--always. They are handsomer than the rich ones. I--"
She caught her breath with a gasp. He had turned around quickly and
caught her hand.
"Miss West--" he was beginning to say, when a sudden step sounded
beside them.
Lieutenant De Vere had come up to them. There was a sudden glitter in
his brown eyes--a jealous gleam.
"I beg your pardon. Are you and Miss West rehearsing for private
theatricals?" he asked, with a slight sarcastic inflection.
Lancaster looked intensely annoyed; Leonora only laughed.
"Yes," she said. "Do you not think that I should make a good actress,
Lieutenant De Vere?"
"Yes," he replied, "and Lancaster would make a good actor. 'One man in
his time plays many parts.'"
Lancaster looked at him with a lightning gleam in his blue eyes. There
was a superb scorn in them.
"Thank you," he replied. "And to carry out your idea, I will now make
my exit."
He bowed royally and walked away. De Vere laughed uneasily; Leonora had
coolly gone back to her book. His eyes flashed.
"If anyone had told me this, I should not have believed it," he
muttered. "Ah! it was well to lecture me and get the game into his
own hands. Beggar! what could he give her, even if she bestowed her
matchless self upon him--what but a barren honor, an empty title? Ah,
well! false friend, I know all now," he hissed angrily to himself.