"I am quite unworthy, I know; but, if you knew how all my life long I have desired the friendship of a good and noble woman, you would be kinder to me – you would indeed!"
"Do you think, then, that I am good and noble?" she asked.
"I am sure of it; your face – "
"I wish," she interrupted, "that Sir Oswald were of your opinion. You have lived in what people call 'the world' all your life, Captain Langton, I suppose?"
"Yes," he replied, wondering what would follow.
"You have been in society all that time, yet I am the first 'good and noble woman' you have met! You are hardly complimentary to the sex, after all."
The captain was slightly taken aback.
"I did not say those exact words, Miss Darrell."
"But you implied them. Tell me why you wish for my friendship more than any other. Miss Hastings is ten thousand times more estimable than I am – why not make her your friend?"
"I admire you – I like you. I could say more, but I dare not. You are hard upon me, Miss Darrell."
"I have no wish to be hard," she returned. "Who am I that I should be hard upon any one? But, you see, I am unfortunately what people call very plain-spoken – very truthful."
"So much the better," said Captain Langton.
"Is it? Sir Oswald says not. If he does not make me his heiress, it will be because I have such an abrupt manner of speaking; he often tells me so."
"Truth in a beautiful woman," began the captain, sentimentally; but Miss Darrell again interrupted him – she had little patience with his platitudes.
"You say you wish for my friendship because you like me. Now, here is the difficulty – I cannot give it to you, because I do not like you."
"You do not like me?" cried the captain, hardly able to believe the evidence of his own senses. "You cannot mean it! You are the first person who ever said such a thing!"
"Perhaps I am not the first who ever thought it; but then, as I tell you, I am very apt to say what I think."
"Will you tell me why you do not like me?" asked the captain, quietly. He began to see that nothing could be gained in any other fashion.
Her beautiful face was raised quite calmly to his, her dark eyes were as proudly serene as ever, she was utterly unconscious that she was saying anything extraordinary.
"I will tell you with pleasure," she replied. "You seem to me wanting in truth and earnestness; you think people are to be pleased by flattery. You flatter Sir Oswald, you flatter Miss Hastings, you flatter me. Being agreeable is all very well, but an honest man does not need to flatter – does not think of it, in fact. Then, you are either heedless or cruel – I do not know which. Why should you kill that beautiful flower that Heaven made to enjoy the sunshine, just for one idle moment's wanton sport?"
Captain Langton's face grew perfectly white with anger.
"Upon my word of honor," he said, "I never heard anything like this!"
Miss Darrell turned carelessly away.
"You see," she said, "friendship between us would be rather difficult. But I will not judge too hastily; I will wait a few days, and then decide."
She had quitted the room before Captain Langton had sufficiently recovered from his dismay to answer.
CHAPTER XI.
HOW WILL IT END?
It was some minutes before Captain Langton collected himself sufficiently to cross the room and speak to Miss Hastings. She looked up at him with a smile.
"I am afraid you have not had a very pleasant time of it at that end of the room, Captain Langton," she said; "I was just on the point of interfering."
"Your pupil is a most extraordinary young lady, Miss Hastings," he returned; "I have never met with any one more so."
Miss Hastings laughed; there was an expression of great amusement on her face.
"She is certainly very original, Captain Langton; quite different from the pattern young lady of the present day."
"She is magnificently handsome," he continued; "but her manners are simply startling."
"She has very grand qualities," said Miss Hastings; "she has a noble disposition and a generous heart, but the want of early training, the mixing entirely with one class of society, has made her very strange."
"Strange!" cried the captain. "I have never met with any one so blunt, so outspoken, so abrupt, in all my life. She has no notion of repose or polish; I have never been so surprised. I hear Sir Oswald coming, and really, Miss Hastings, I feel that I cannot see him; I am not equal to it – that extraordinary girl has quite unsettled me. You might mention that I have gone out in the grounds to smoke my cigar; I cannot talk to any one."
Miss Hastings laughed as he passed out through the open French window into the grounds. Sir Oswald came in, smiling and contented; he talked for a few minutes with Miss Hastings, and heard that the captain was smoking his cigar. He expressed to Miss Hastings his very favorable opinion of the young man, and then bade her good-night.
"How will it end?" said the governess to herself. "She will never marry him, I am sure. Those proud, clear, dark eyes of hers look through all his little airs and graces; her grand soul seems to understand all the narrowness and selfishness of his. She will never marry him. Oh, if she would but be civilized! Sir Oswald is quite capable of leaving all he has to the captain, and then what would become of Pauline?"
By this time the gentle, graceful governess had become warmly attached to the beautiful, wayward, willful girl who persisted so obstinately in refusing what she chose to call "polish."
"How will it end?" said the governess. "I would give all I have to see Pauline mistress of Darrell Court; but I fear the future."
Some of the scenes that took place between Miss Darrell and the captain were very amusing. She had the utmost contempt for his somewhat dandified airs, his graces, and affectations.
"I like a grand, rugged, noble man, with the head of a hero, and the brow of a poet, the heart of a lion, and the smile of a child," she said to him one day; "I cannot endure a coxcomb."
"I hope you may find such a man, Miss Darrell," he returned, quietly. "I have been some time in the world, but I have never met with such a character."
"I think your world has been a very limited one," she replied, and the captain looked angry.
He had certainly hoped and intended to dazzle her with his worldly knowledge, if nothing else. Yet how she despised his knowledge, and with what contempt she heard him speak of his various experiences!
Nothing seemed to jar upon her and to irritate her as did his affectations. She was looking one morning at a very beautifully veined leaf, which she passed over to Miss Hastings.
"Is it not wonderful?" she asked; and the captain, with his eye-glass, came to look at it.
"Are you short-sighted?" she asked him, abruptly.
"Not in the least," he replied.
"Is your sight defective?" she continued.
"No, not in the least degree."
"Then why do you use that eye-glass, Captain Langton?"
"I-ah-why, because everybody uses one," he replied.
"I thought it was only women who did that kind of thing – followed a fashion for fashion's sake," she said, with some little contempt.
The next morning the captain descended without his eye-glass, and Miss Hastings smiled as she noticed it.
Another of his affectations was a pretended inability to pronounce his "t's" and "r's."
"Can you really not speak plainly?" she said to him one day.
"Most decidedly I can," he replied, wondering what was coming next.
"Then,