“You must have had a devil of a time,” he said with emphasis. “Do you know if the ladies were much frightened?”
Mervyn was silent, but Jerrold with his crisp, fresh, capable air was ready to take the word.
“I think they knew nothing of the fire and the Cherokee demonstration till everything was over,” he said.
“You did well—you did well!” the commandant declared, addressing no one in particular, and Mervyn, who could hardly say, “It was not I,” saw him, with infinite relief, turn presently from the scene of these incidents and take his way toward his own quarters, with a belated monition that it was now in order to greet his waiting family.
There the news met him of the notable capture in his absence, for Mrs. Annandale had learned the particulars from her niece and was herself blissful enough to be translated. In fact, so beaming, so softened, so benign was she, that Captain Howard, more gratified than he would have cared to acknowledge, could not forbear a gibe at her vicarious happiness.
“One would think you were to be the bride, Claudia,” he said, laughing in great good-humor.
“With the handsome young husband, and Mervyn Hall, and the Mervyn diamonds! But it’s none too good for my treasure—the brightest, the best, the most beautiful and winsome creature that ever stepped!” She put her handkerchief to her eyes, for those sardonic little orbs were full of tears.
“She is—she is indeed!” cried Captain Howard. He felt that no man could be worthy of Arabella.
“But now, you must be careful—don’t speak as if it is absolutely settled. You know dear Arabella is a bit freakish—”
She would have said—“perverse like you,” but for the bliss that curbed her thoughts. But indeed Captain Howard took the alarm on the instant.