“Here he is, coming along the road forninst you, Miss.”
The man spoke civilly enough. It was natural to be civil to the Comtesse when she smiled. She had fine eyes, and was not too proud to use them in a very delightful manner even when the man before her was no more than a trooper in a company of yeomen.
“So he is!” she said. “And my good gentleman trooper, how nice your manners are. I am, alas! no longer ‘Miss,’ though it pleases you to flatter me. I am ‘Madam,’ a widow, quite an old woman.”
She left him and hurried forward to greet Captain Twinely.
“I am charmed to meet you, Captain Twinely. But why have you never been up to call on us? We hear that you have been two whole days in our neighbourhood and not even once have you come to see us. How rude and unkind you are. I would not have believed it of you. But perhaps you have been very busy chasing the odious rebels and had no time to visit us poor ladies.”
“I didn’t think I was wanted at Dunseveric House, my lady,” said the captain.
Like his trooper, he was aware that the Comtesse smiled at him, and that she had beautiful eyes.
“I will not take that as an excuse,” she said. “Surely you must know, Captain Twinely, that we are two lonely women, that my lord and my nephew are away. You must have guessed that we should suffer, ah, so terribly, from ‘ennui’. Is it not the first duty of an officer to pay his respects to the ladies and to amuse them, especially in this terrible country where it is only the military men who have any manners at all?”
Captain Twinely was delighted and embarrassed. He wished that he had brushed his uniform more carefully in the morning, and that he had not been too lazy to shave. He would gladly have been looking his best now that the eyes of this elegant lady of title and fashion were on him.
“I am at your ladyship’s service,” he murmured.