“To suffer the disapproval of one so lovely,” the remnant of the old-time gentleman rejoined, “is a misfortune so severe that I cannot forbear reminding you that you are not fully familiar with the conditions under which I exist.”
In this unsatisfactory strain the conversation continued for some time longer; and when at length the ghost took its departure, and Irene retired to rest, she could not flatter herself that she had made any especial progress toward inducing the spirit to yield the secret which it had so long and so carefully guarded. The major’s affections seemed to be set with deathless constancy upon the gems, and that most powerful of masculine passions, vanity, to be enlisted in their defense.
“I am afraid that it is of no use,” Irene sighed to herself; “and yet, after all, he was only a man when he was alive, and he cannot be much more than that now when he is a ghost.”
And greatly comforted by the reflection that whatever is masculine is to be overcome by feminine guile, she fell asleep.
IV
On the following afternoon Irene found herself rowing on the river with the lieutenant. She had declined his invitation to come, and had immediately felt so exultant in the strength of mind which had enabled her to withstand temptation that she had followed the refusal with an acceptance.
The day was deliciously soft and balmy. A thin haze shut off the heat of the sun, while a southerly breeze found somewhere a spicy and refreshing odor, which with great generosity it diffused over the water. The river moved tranquilly, and any one capable of being sentimental might well find it hard to resist the influences of the afternoon.
The lieutenant was as ardently in love as it is possible for a man to be who is at once a soldier and handsome, and indeed more than would have been expected from a man who combined such causes of self-satisfaction. The fact that Irene had a great deal of money, while he had none, gave to his passion a hopelessness from his point of view which much increased its fervor. He gazed at his companion with his great dark eyes as she sat in the stern, his heavy eyebrows and well-developed mustache preventing him from looking as silly as might otherwise have been the case. Miss Gaspic was by no means insensible to the spell of the time and of the companionship in which she found herself, but she was determined above all things to be discreet.
“Arthur,” she said, by way of keeping the talk in safe channels and also of finding out what she wanted to know, “was search ever made for the McHugh diamonds?”
“Search!” he repeated. “Everything short of pulling the house down has been tried. Everybody in the family from the time they were lost has had a hand at it.”