For the nonce he chose to be a woman of quality. Therefore he was that woman, plus a dash of native devilry that she was born without. The way he played his eyes, the archness of his simpering, his ringing laugh, the sauciness that salted all he said, his smiling rogueries, his dimpled impudence, his downright, damnable adorableness, he appeared to put on with his dress, and wore with the elegant propriety of one who had dwelt in Spring Gardens all her days.
“My lad,” says I, “you step a point beyond me quite. Here have you picked up Saccharissa’s every trick in twenty minutes. ’Tis a miracle, I’ll swear.”
“Fudge,” says he, “’tis no miracle. The living model is before me, and the rest is no more than a painter does when he transfers that model to a canvas. You twist your lips into a smile, and see—I ape ’em with my own.” And the very trick I had of sardonically smiling from the corners of my mouth he immediately copied with marvellous fidelity.
“My Lady Barbara,” says he, “you once disdained me with a glance. Here is the one you did it with.”
Straight he gathered all his inches up and gazed down upon Emblem and myself with a severity awful to observe. As for his voice, it was thin and somewhat treble in its quality. But it was an instrument that had a singular variety of tone. Its natural note was boyish, fresh, and piercing; yet that did not prevent it from one moment scorning like an actress, nor the next from being missish, petulant, and shrill.
Pretty soon the ears of us conspirators were assailed with strange and reiterated sounds. The soldiers had begun their search. The three of us looked at one another, and debated what to do. The Honourable Prudence Canticle turned to me, and said:
“Where’s that pistol, Bab? There might be an accident, you know, and if there is—well!”
So much was implied by that doleful monosyllable that I handed the weapon to him without demur. He desired to keep it in the pocket of his breeches, but it called for a deal of judicious aid on the part of Emblem and myself ere his enormous hooped petticoat could be supported while he introduced it. Then a nice point had to be considered. Should we stay where we were and await the enemy, or repair to the drawing-room and meet it under the protection of the presence of the formidable Lady Caroline?
Miss Prue languidly professed that she was quite indifferent, being perfectly easy in her mind that her skirts, her powder, and her head-dress would be more than a match for a corporal and five foolish troopers.
“So long as that Captain remains strapped to his board in the library,” she assured us, “I snap my fingers at ’em.”