"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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 n.o.ble disposition and a generous heart, but the want of early training, the mixing entirely with one cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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, n.o.ble 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 c.o.xcomb."
"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 pa.s.sed over to Miss Hastings.
"Is it not wonderful?" she asked; and the captain, with his eye-gla.s.s, 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-gla.s.s, 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-gla.s.s, and Miss Hastings smiled as she noticed it.
Another of his affectations was a pretended inability to p.r.o.nounce 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, why do you call "rove" "wove" in that absurd fashion?"
The captain"s face flushed.
"It is a habit I have fallen into, I suppose," he replied. "I must break myself of it."
"It is about the most effeminate habit a man can fall into," said Miss Darrell. "I think that, if I were a soldier, I should delight in clear, plain speaking. I cannot understand why English gentlemen seem to think it fashionable to mutilate their mother tongue."
There was no chance of their ever agreeing--they never did even for one single hour.
"What are you thinking about, Pauline?" asked Miss Hastings one day.
Her young pupil had fallen into a reverie over "The History of the Peninsular War."
"I am thinking," she replied, "that, although France boasts so much of her military glory, England has a superior army; her soldiers are very brave; her officers the truest gentlemen."
"I am glad to hear that you think so. I have often wondered if you would take our guest as a sample."
Her beautiful lips curled with unutterable contempt.
"Certainly not. I often contrast him with a Captain Lafosse, who used to visit us in the Rue d"Orme, a grand man with a brown, rugged face, and great brown hands. Captain Langton is a c.o.xcomb--neither more nor less, Miss Hastings."
"But he is polished, refined, elegant in his manner and address, which, perhaps, your friend with the brown, rugged face was not."
"We shall not agree, Miss Hastings, we shall not agree. I do not like Captain Langton."
The governess, remembering all that Sir Oswald wished, tried in vain to represent their visitor in a more favorable light. Miss Darrell simply looked haughty and unconvinced.
"I am years younger than you," she said, at last, "and have seen nothing of what you call "life"; but the instinct of my own heart tells me that he is false in heart, in mind, in soul; he has a false, flattering tongue, false lips, false principles--we will not speak of him."
Miss Hastings looked at her sadly.
"Do you not think that in time, perhaps, you may like him better?"
"No," was the blunt reply, "I do not. I told him that I did not like him, but that I would take some time to consider whether he was to be a friend of mine or not; and the conclusion I have arrived at is, that I could not endure his friendship."
"When did you tell him that you did not like him?" asked Miss Hastings, gravely.
"I think it was the first night he came," she replied.
Miss Hastings looked relieved.
"Did he say anything else to you, Pauline?" she asked, gently.