“Better than an hour, uncle. I went into his room and smoked a pipe with him.”
“Oh, indeed. And has the excellent newsman any family, Frank?”
“He has one daughter, and she is without exception one of the very prettiest girls I ever saw.”
“Oh, indeed,” Captain Bradshaw said, drily; “that accounts for the length of your visit. I suppose she was very grateful to the preserver of her father’s life, and that sort of thing? I should not be surprised now if she threw herself into your arms and kissed you—eh, Frank?”
“Well, uncle,” Frank said, laughing, “I shall think you are a conjurer, for I confess that I did kiss her.”
“Just what I guessed,” Captain Bradshaw said, even more drily. “And the father, Frank? I suppose he is a very superior sort of man?”
“Very much so, uncle; I can assure you, although you are laughing at me, he is quite a gentleman; has travelled all over Europe, and has evidently mixed in good society there.”
“Look here, Frank” Captain Bradshaw said, very gravely; “this is exactly the sort of thing which is sure to end badly. Here we have all the elements: father a decayed gentleman; daughter a lovely and accomplished girl, gushing over with gratitude to the preserver of her father’s life. I should advise you very seriously not to go there again. I have known these sort of things over and over again, scores of times, and they end in nine cases out of ten in a man’s making either a fool or a rascal of himself.”
“But, uncle,” Frank broke out hotly——
“Pooh, pooh! Frank, don’t tell me,” the captain said. “Damme, sir, do you think I have not heard it over and over again? Of course you have only been there once; you have found a pretty, grateful girl, and you have given her a kiss, as was only right and natural that you should do under the circumstances. There is no harm in these first meetings—there never is. A man seldom goes into these things with his eyes open—very few men are scoundrels enough deliberately to plan these things—but he calls again and again. He still finds her very pretty, and her gratitude gradually grows into a warmer feeling; he has kissed her once, and of course it would be absurd for her to make any objection when he does it the second time; and so these things go on, until the man, as I have said, either makes a fool of himself, and marries her, or makes a rascal of himself, and does worse. I know, Frank, that such an idea is at present as far from your head as it is from mine; but as a man of the world, I ask you, ask yourself, if you were to go there often—sometimes, of course, finding her father away, and having a half hour’s chat with her all to yourself—would you not end by feeling that you had very much better have left the matter alone? Honestly, now?”