At any rate, Dick found it so, if judgment might be framed from his expression. He looked the reverse of pleased, but subdued the feeling as he turned round and spoke:
"Hullo! I didn't see you come aboard. How do you do, old fellow? How do you do, Miss Chantrelle?... Let me introduce Mr. Masters to you." He knew his friend's real name now, and was rather proud of it. "Mr. William Masters.... Yes, the novelist—Miss Chantrelle... Her brother, Percy Chantrelle."
They formed, more or less, a quartette on the voyage home. Dick saw he was in for it and could not help himself—easy-going Dick! Occasionally they paired off: Miss Chantrelle and Dick and the two men.
Masters prided himself on possession of an ability to read faces; he had no liking for the two new ones which had come aboard at Madeira. Miss Chantrelle's more especially repelled him. Not because he preferred her brother; rather that he set up a higher standard as necessary for women than men.
Human nature was a power Masters ever recognized. He could forgive a man being hard, calculating and selfish, but not a woman; in Miss Chantrelle's face he read all those attributes. Still, they were Dick's friends, more or less; so, in a measure, they became his.
Amy Chantrelle was equally quick in facial perusal; speedily read distrust in Masters'. She had not lived in the world without acquiring its knowledge; was wise enough to appreciate the power in others she possessed herself. She was a distinctly clever, shrewd, woman of the world.
Nothing would have arisen from all this, but for the rattling of Master Dick's tongue. He told of Prince Charlie's matrimonial intent: the possibility of friend merging into brother-in-law. At heart he was so proud of this possibility that he would have liked to proclaim it from the house-tops—masthead would perhaps have been a more suitable word.
Miss Chantrelle listened with interest; scarcely sympathetic interest, but the distinction was not obvious. It was unobserved by Dick, and he felt himself encouraged to expound the subject he had so much at heart. Was led on to so doing by skilfully-put questions such as only a woman would know how to frame.
Amy Chantrelle was greatly displeased; all her sympathy was assumed. The Chantrelles were poor. Both brother and sister were well-favoured; each looked to marriage as a little boat in which the storm of life might be weathered.
They inclined to the belief that Percy was a favourite with Mrs. Seton-Carr. Now that she was a widow there was hope, a very strong hope too, in their hearts that she might be induced to change her name to that of Chantrelle.