"There is the first dinner-bell," she said, with an air of great relief; "there will only just be time to return. As you seem solicitous about Sir Oswald's wishes we had better go in, for he dearly loves punctuality."
"I believe," thought the captain, "that she is anxious to get away from me. I must say that I am not accustomed to this kind of thing."
The aspect of the dining-room, with its display of fine old plate, the brilliantly arranged tables, the mingled odor of rare wines and flowers, restored him to good humor.
"It would be worth some little trouble," he thought, "to win all this."
He took Pauline in to dinner. The grand, pale, passionate beauty of the girl had never shown to greater advantage than it did this evening, as she sat with the purple and crimson fuchsias in her hair and the broken lily in her belt. Sir Oswald did not notice the latter until dinner was half over. Then he said:
"Why, Pauline, with gardens and hothouses full of flowers, have you chosen a broken one?"
"To me it is exquisite," she replied.
The captain's face darkened for a moment, but he would not take offense. The elegantly appointed table, the seductive dinner, the rare wines, all made an impression on him. He said to himself that there was a good thing offered to him, and that a girl's haughty temper should not stand in his way. He made himself most agreeable, he was all animation, vivacity, and high spirits with Sir Oswald. He was deferential and attentive to Miss Hastings, and his manner to Pauline left no doubt in the minds of the lookers on that he was completely fascinated by her. She was too proudly indifferent, too haughtily careless, even to resent it. Sir Oswald Darrell was too true a gentleman to offer his niece to any one; but he had given the captain to understand that, if he could woo her and win her, there would be no objection raised on his part.
For once in his life Captain Langton had spoken quite truthfully.
"I have nothing," he said; "my father left me but a very moderate fortune, and I have lost the greater part of it. I have not been careful or prudent, Sir Oswald."
"Care and prudence are not the virtues of youth," Sir Oswald returned. "I may say, honestly, I should be glad if your father's son could win my niece; as for fortune, she will be richly dowered if I make her my heiress. Only yesterday I heard that coal had been found on my Scotch estates, and, if that be true, it will raise my income many thousands per annum."
"May you long live to enjoy your wealth, Sir Oswald!" said the young man, so heartily that tears stood in the old baronet's eyes.
But there was one thing the gallant captain did not confess. He did not tell Sir Oswald Darrell – what was really the truth – that he was over head and ears in debt, and that this visit to Darrell Court was the last hope left to him.
CHAPTER X.
PAULINE STILL INCORRIGIBLE
Sir Oswald lingered over his wine. It was not every day that he found a companion so entirely to his taste as Captain Langton. The captain had a collection of anecdotes of the court, the aristocracy, and the mess-room, that could not be surpassed. He kept his own interest well in view the whole time, making some modest allusions to the frequency with which his society was sought, and the number of ladies who were disposed to regard him favorably. All was narrated with the greatest skill, without the least boasting, and Sir Oswald, as he listened with delight, owned to himself that, all things considered, he could not have chosen more wisely for his niece.
A second bottle of fine old port was discussed, and then Sir Oswald said:
"You will like to go to the drawing-room; the ladies will be there. I always enjoy forty winks after dinner."
The prospect of a tete-a-tete with Miss Darrell did not strike the captain as being a very rapturous one.
"She is," he said to himself, "a magnificently handsome girl, but almost too haughty to be bearable. I have never, in all my life, felt so small as I do when she speaks to me or looks at me, and no man likes that sort of thing."
But Darrell Court was a magnificent estate, the large annual income was a sum he had never even dreamed of, and all might be his – Sir Oswald had said so; his, if he could but win the proud heart of the proudest girl it had ever been his fortune to meet. The stake was well worth going through something disagreeable for.
"If she were only like other women," he thought, "I should know how to manage her; but she seems to live in the clouds."
The plunge had to be made, so the captain summoned all his courage, and went to the drawing-room. The picture there must have struck the least imaginative of men.
Miss Hastings, calm, elegant, lady-like, in her quiet evening dress of gray silk, was seated near a small stand on which stood a large lamp, by the light of which she was reading. The part of the room near her was brilliantly illuminated. It was a spacious apartment – unusually so even for a large mansion. It contained four large windows, two of which were closed, the gorgeous hangings of white and gold shielding them from view; the other end of the room was in semi-darkness, the brilliant light from the lamp not reaching it – the windows were thrown wide open, and the soft, pale moonlight came in. The evening came in, too, bringing with it the sweet breath of the lilies, the perfume of the roses, the fragrance of rich clover, carnations, and purple heliotropes. Faint shadows lay on the flowers, the white silvery light was very peaceful and sweet; the dewdrops shone on the grass – it was the fairest hour of nature's fair day.
Pauline had gone to the open window. Something had made her restless and unquiet; but, standing there, the spell of that beautiful moonlit scene calmed her, and held her fast. With one look at that wonderful sky and its myriad stars, one at the soft moonlight and the white lilies, the fever of life died from her, and a holy calm, sweet fancies, bright thoughts, swept over her like an angel's wing.
Then she became conscious of a stir in the perfumed air; something less agreeable mingled with the fragrance of the lilies scent of which she did not know the name, but which – some she disliked ever afterward because the captain used it. A low voice that would fain be tender murmured something in her ear; the spell of the moonlight was gone, the quickly thronging poetical fancies had all fled away, the beauty seemed to have left even the sleeping flowers. Turning round to him, she said, in a clear voice, every word sounding distinctly:
"Have the goodness, Captain Langton, not to startle me again. I do not like any one to come upon me in that unexpected manner."
"I was so happy to find you alone," he whispered.
"I do not know why that should make you happy. I always behave much better when I am with Miss Hastings than when I am alone."
"You are always charming," he said. "I want to ask you something, Miss Darrell. Be kind, be patient, and listen to me."
"I am neither kind nor patient by nature," she returned; "what have you to say?"
It was very difficult, he felt, to be sentimental with her. She had turned to the window, and was looking out again at the flowers; one little white hand played impatiently with a branch of guelder roses that came peeping in.
"I am jealous of those flowers," said the captain; "will you look at me instead of them?"
She raised her beautiful eyes, and looked at him so calmly, with so much conscious superiority in her manner, that the captain felt "smaller" than ever.
"You are talking nonsense to me," she said, loftily; "and as I do not like nonsense, will you tell me what you have to say?"
The voice was calm and cold, the tones measured and slightly contemptuous; it was very difficult under such circumstances to be an eloquent wooer, but the recollection of Darrell Court and its large rent-roll came to him and restored his fast expiring courage.
"I want to ask a favor of you," he said; and the pleading expression that he managed to throw into his face was really creditable to him. "I want to ask you if you will be a little kinder to me. I admire you so much that I should be the happiest man in all the world if you would but give me ever so little of your friendship."
She