“Hardly. But, Lord God, madam, where have you lived? Women to-day are working out destinies for themselves. Now, personally, I should rather see my daughter a famous author, painter, singer, even, although I still have a bit of prejudice against the stage, than suddenly elevated to a class to which she was not born, particularly if led there by the hand of a man like France.”
“My daughter is a lady.”
“Oh, Lord, where am I? In the eighteenth century?” His pique and anger had vanished. He now saw nothing in the situation but present humor and future tragedy; and feeling that his ammunition was exhausted for the moment, he rose, bowed as ceremoniously as his spine would permit, and moved away. Nevertheless, he was interested, the native doggedness which had enabled him to overcome social disabilities was actively roused; moreover, if there was one man whom he disliked more profoundly than another, it was Harold France, and he resented the influence which kept a scoundrel in an honorable profession, when he should have been kicked out with a publicity that would have been a healthy lesson to his class.
He left the hot ball-room and went out upon the terrace to enjoy a cigar and meditate upon the singular character with whom he had exchanged hot shot for nearly an hour. He had no clew to her disquieting personality, but saw that she was a woman of some importance despite her avowed poverty; and she was the elderly mother of a charming young creature with a mane of untidy red-yellow hair (it would never occur to the old sailor to use any of the popular adjectives: flame-colored, copper, Titian, bronze), immense gray eyes with thick black lashes on either lid, narrow black brows, a refined but not distinguished nose, a sweet childish mouth whose ultimate shape Nature had left to Life, a flat figure rather under medium height, covered with a white muslin frock, whose only caparison was a faded blue sash, unmistakably Victorian. Her skin, like that of the other creole girls reared in West Indian heats, was a pure transparent white, which not even dancing tinged with color. As the Captain had been brutal enough to inform her mamma she was not a beauty, but—he stared through the window at her—Youth, radiant, eager, innocent Youth that was her philter. To be sure, the ball-room of Government House was full of young girls, some of them quite beautiful, but they were not the vibrating symbols of their condition, and Julia Edis was. Not one of them possessed her entire lack of coquetry, that terrible innocence, which, combined with an equally unconscious magnetism, had played an immediate and fatal tune upon sated senses.
As the good but by no means unsophisticated sailor looked about him he felt more apprehensive still. Harold France, no doubt, was expert in love-making, and what island maiden of eighteen could resist an ardent wooer with a handsome face above six feet of Her Majesty’s uniform, on a night like this? He was disposed to curse the moon for being on duty, as she generally contrived to be in so many of the dubious crises of love; and to-night she had turned herself inside out to flood the tropical landscape, the sea, the mountains, with silver. The stars were pin-heads, the moon, in the black velvet sky of the tropics, looked like a sailing Alp, its ice and snows absorbing and flinging forth all the light in the heavens. The lofty clusters of long pointed leaves that tipped the shafts of the royal palm trees, glittered like swords, the sea near the shore was as light and vivid a green as by day, and the scent of flowers as seductive as the call of the nightingale. The music in the ball-room was sensuous, sonorous; and it was notorious that creole girls, cool and white as they looked, and dressed almost as simply as Julia Edis, were accomplished coquettes, always prepared for exciting campaigns, however brief, the moment a ship of war entered the harbor. Flirtation, love, must agitate the very air to-night. Such things are communicable, even to the most ignorant and indifferent of maidens. How could that child hope to escape?
He walked over to the window and looked in. The company was resting between dances, the girls and young officers flirting as openly as they dared, although few had ventured to defy the conventions and stroll out into the warm, scented, tropic night. Still, two or three had, proposals being almost inevitable in such conditions; and squadrons come not every day.
France had left Julia beside her mother and gone into the dining room to refresh himself. He returned in a moment, and not only tucked the young girl’s arm within his, but stood for a while talking to Mrs. Edis with his most ingratiating air.
“He means business,” thought the Captain, grimly; and then he derived some comfort from the attitude of the girl herself. She was not paying the least attention to France, although she had permitted him to take possession of her. Her big, shining, happy eyes were wandering about the room, smiling roguishly as they met those of some girl acquaintance, or observed a flirtation behind complacent backs. When the waltz began once more, she floated off in the arm of the man whose hard, opaque eyes were devouring her perfect freshness, but she paid little or no attention to his whispered compliments, being far too absorbed in the delight of dancing.
“He’s made no more impression on her than if he were a dancing master,” thought the Captain, with satisfaction. “She’s immune to tropic nights and uniforms. Gad! Wish I were a youngster. I’d enter the lists myself.”
But what could he do? He saw the satisfaction on the powerful face of Mrs. Edis, the envious glances of many mothers; no such parti as Harold France had come to these islands for many a year. And France was by no means ill to look at, if one did not analyze his eyes and mouth. He was a big, strong, positive male, with a bold, sheep-like profile (sometimes called classic), which would have made him look stupid but for a general expression of pride, so ingrained and sincere that it was almost lofty. There was not an atom of charm about him, not even common animal magnetism, but his manners were distinguished, his small brain remarkably quick, and he looked as if it had taken three valets to groom him.