“Yes, yes!”
The captain laid aside his napkin and began to show signs of getting flurried again.
“Her name is Eve,” he said, in the hurried way which was rather pathetic. “Now, I wonder what I should call her. Poor young thing! if she’s distressed about her father’s death--which is only natural, I’m sure--it would sound a bit chilly like to call her Miss Challoner. What do you think, Mr. - eh--er--Lord--sir?”
“Well, I think I should call her Eve--it’s a pretty name--and take her by the hand, and--yes, I think I’d kiss her. Especially if she was a nice-looking girl,” he added for his own personal edification as he preceded his companion into the hall.
He was fumbling in the tail pocket of his short tweed coat as he went. In the hall he turned.
“Got anything to smoke?” he asked, in his most abrupt manner, as if the cut of his collar did not allow of verbosity.
The old man shyly produced some cigars in a leather case, which had never been of great value, even in the far-off days of its youth.
“I hardly like to offer them to you,” he said slowly. “T--they’re not expensive, and I couldn’t explain to the young woman what I wanted.”
“Rather like the look of them,” said Lord Seahampton, taking one and cutting the end off with a certain show of eagerness. This young man’s reputation for personal bravery was a known quantity on the hunting-field. “Old sailors,” he continued, “generally know good tobacco.”
And all the while he had half-a-dozen of the best Havanas in his pocket. Some instinct, which he was much too practical to define, and possibly too stupid to detect, told him that this was one of those occasions where it is much more blessed to receive than to give.