Who has not been blessed by looking upon such an English face: ruddy on the cheek, and white and pink upon the brow and neck: the head poised upon the shoulders with a wondrous delicacy? Such girls issue from honest Englishmen's homes to gladden honeymoon cottages, and perpetuate that which is virtuous and courageous in our Saxon race. She lay muffled in shawls, pillowed upon a carpet-bag, softened with his fur coat, frightened about the sea, and asking every few minutes whether we were near the port.
He fell into conversation with me before we were clear of Folkestone harbour. He was a travelled man, accustomed to do his journeying socially, and not in the surly, self-contained, and selfish manner of our countrymen generally. I confess—and it is a boldness, knowing all I do know now—that I was drawn towards Daker at the outset. He had a winning manner—just that manner which puts you on a friendly footing with a stranger before you have passed an hour in his company. He began, as though it was quite natural that we should become acquainted, in the tone your neighbour at dinner assumes, although you are unacquainted with his name. We were on an exact level: gentlemen, beyond fear or reproach. I repeat emphatically, I liked Daker's manner, for it was easy and polished, and it had—which you don't often get with much polish—warmth. I was attracted by his many attentions to his young wife. Who could be near her, and not feel the chivalry in his soul warm to such a woman? But Daker's attentions were idiosyncrasies. While he was talking to me at the cabin-door, he saw the fur coat slip, and readjusted it. He divined when she wanted to move. He fanned her; and she sought his eyes incessantly with the deep pure blue of hers, and slaked her ever-thirsty love with long, passionate gazing. She took no notice of me: he was all her world.
Daker was in an airy humour—a man I thought without guile or care, passing away from England to happy connubial times along the enchanting shores which the Mediterranean bathes. We fell, as fellow-travellers generally do, upon old stories of the ways of the world we had seen. He had taken wider ranges than my duties had ever entailed on me.
Autumn was cooling to winter; it was early November when we met.
"I have been," he said, "killing time and birds pleasantly enough in Sussex."
Mrs. Daker overheard him, and smiled. Then we shifted carelessly, as far as I was concerned, away. He continued—
"And now we're off on the usual tramp. My wife wants a warm winter, and so do I, for the matter of that."
"Nice?" I asked.
A very decided "no" was the answer.
"I shall find some little sleepy Italian country-place, where we shall lay up like dormice, and just give King Frost the go-by for once. Are you bound south?"