“I cannot! I am with my sister and Miss Leyton!” he replied.
“O! pray do not let us prevent you,” said Elinor in her coldest voice; “Margaret was just going upstairs and I am quite ready to accompany her!”
“No, no, Elinor,” whispered Mrs. Pullen with a shake of her head, “stay here, and keep Ralph company!”
“But it is nearly ten o’clock,” replied Miss Leyton, consulting her watch, “and I have been on my feet all day! and feel quite ready for bed. Good-night, Ralph!” she continued, offering him her hand.
“Well! if you two are really going to bed, I shall go too,” said Captain Pullen, rising, “for there will be nothing for me to do here after you’re gone!”
“Not even to follow the procession?” suggested Miss Leyton, with a smile.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” he rejoined crossly. “Am I the sort of man to go bobbing up and down the Digue amongst a parcel of children?”
He shook hands with them both, and walked away rather sulkily to his own quarter of the hotel. But he did not go to bed. He waited until some fifteen minutes had elapsed, and then telling himself that it was impossible to sleep at that hour, and that if Elinor chose to behave like a bear, it was not his fault, he came downstairs again and sauntered out on the sea front.
It was very lonely there at that moment. The procession had turned and gone down to the other end again, where its lights and banners could be seen, waving about in the still summer air.
“Why shouldn’t the girl jump about and enjoy herself if she chooses,” thought Ralph Pullen. “Elinor makes no allowances for condition or age, but would have everyone as prim and old-maidish as herself. I declare she gets worse each time I see her! A nice sort of wife she will make if this kind of thing goes on! But by Jingo! if we are ever married, I’ll take her prudery out of her, and make her—what? The woman who commences by pursing her mouth up at everything, ends by opening it wider than anybody else! There’s twice as much harm in a prude as in one of these frank open-hearted girls, whose eyes tell you what they’re thinking of, the first time you see them!”