"No!" replied Agnes, blushing and smiling. "Patrick is aware that we always judge of people's merits for ourselves."
"What would I not give to hear that verdict pronounced! If you have tried me by a court-martial, you may at least let me know the sentence!"
"It would do you good, De Crespigny, to hear those girls discussing your demerits! Your vanity requires lowering a peg or two!" said Sir Patrick, with a mischievous laugh. "You owe me countless thanks for putting in a word of defence now and then to protect you, for positively they are too bad. On the score of conceit and extravagance, I undertake to be your champion. Such faults are like the spots upon ermine, rather ornamental than otherwise; but if any one says you dress ill, I have not a syllable to say. Let me advise you, as a friend, to discard that tailor. He is atrocious. It would be the utmost stretch of my friendship to be seen with you anywhere to-day, except in some rural parts of the country; so now for our walk."
"Dress as you may, Dunbar, you will never look like me!" replied Captain De Crespigny, as they lounged off together. "It was a problem of Euclid, which we settled at Eton long ago, and may demonstrate now, that A B C can never be equal to D E F. Good morning, ladies! au revoir! we must fly. In your society I resemble the gentleman we used to read of in our school books, whose wings were melted because he ventured too near the sun."
The more Marion saw of Captain De Crespigny, the more astonished she became at the multiplicity of his talents for conversation, and at his universal craving to be admired, while all the petits soins which he lavished on herself, she, as a matter of course, set down to his extraordinary vanity, which could not allow the most insignificant of mortals to escape his fascinations; but to have supposed his attentions to be indications of love, she would have considered as absurd a blunder as to mistake an oyster-shell for an oyster.
Captain De Crespigny sketched caricatures with inimitable humor, sung with taste, and with every appearance of feeling, and his versatility of powers in talking were almost incredible. He discussed science occasionally with any blue-stocking, like a philosopher—looked dismal upon politics with members of Parliament—talked agriculture and fat cattle with country gentlemen—could describe the state of New Zealand, as if he had visited the country, to old ladies, with large families of enterprising sons. He was musical with the musical, sentimental with the sentimental, and apparently at home equally in poetry or metaphysics. With a smile for one, a sigh for another, and a jest for a third, his small-talk for young ladies might be minced into the smallest grains of sense or nonsense; while at the same time he could even get up a very plausible religious conversation, on the most approved model, when in company with any one like Marion, to whom he thought it might render him more acceptable. The true secret of Captain De Crespigny's almost universal popularity, lay in his appearing so flatteringly interested by whatever occupied the attention of others; and whether it were the last snowstorm, or a newly discovered star in the firmament—an old pedigree or a new bonnet, he seemed equally ready to follow the lead of any young lady, being sufficiently delighted in his own private mind, to imagine how every word he said, and every look he looked, would be afterwards treasured and remembered by those whom he had no particular intention of remembering himself.
Marion observed narrowly and anxiously Captain De Crespigny's conduct to Agnes; but even her discernment, quickened by the most affectionate solicitude, could bring her to no conclusive decision respecting his intentions, though she could not but feel sanguine at one time, and justly indignant at another, according as the thermometer of her hopes and fears rose or fell; yet she strongly suspected that Captain De Crespigny was but indulging his own ambition—that he wished to be thought of and talked about—to become devotedly loved—to be necessary to the happiness of another—to constitute that happiness for a short time, and then to destroy it as a useless toy, which had amused him for an hour, and might be broken without remorse. "How different! oh! how very different from Richard Granville!" thought Marion, with a glowing smile. "To him the peace of no living mortal is insignificant; and when loved or trusted, who ever was so considerate, so totally unselfish, so free from vanity and caprice! No Christian can doubt that happiness and principle are one."
The name of any individual more than commonly interesting is apt to occur often in conversation, a propos to everything or nothing; and Captain De Crespigny's penetration very soon discovered, that the Granvilles were never heard of or mentioned by Marion with indifference; therefore being anxious to fathom her secret, and to ascertain the extent of her intimacy with them, he tried the experiment one day, by professing an enthusiastic admiration for the extraordinary eloquence of "Dick Granville!" in whom he appeared suddenly to have discovered a thousand new and unheard-of good qualities, while with humorous pertinacity he defended him from all the satirical cuts with which Sir Patrick tried to lower his importance in the eyes of Marion; but Captain De Crespigny, unconscious of the lead which he was expected to follow, rattled on in his accustomed way,
"Granville always was one whom nothing could spoil! So different from young Meredith, who used one short month since to go about with a quiet country-curate look, but since he has become rather popular in the pulpit, he enters a room with his chin in the air, and all the self-confidence of a great lion. Weak heads are easily intoxicated."
"And people here do all in their power to ruin those they most admire, by very overdone adulation," added Agnes. "It would be a very strong fortress of humility that could withstand all the absurd mobbing which Mr. Granville has to undergo."