“My dear Captain,” says I, with a wistful softness, “it makes me quite dismal, I assure you, to discover you in such a grievous strait.” A tear stood in my eye.
“Dear Lady Barbara,” says he, “you can tell that to my leg.”
“Ah, dear Captain,” says I, with soft-breathing tenderness, “I wish you could see into my heart.”
“’Twould be more difficult than pearl-fishing in deep seas,” says he. “Besides, a heart, they tell me, is a thing you have not got.”
“O, that I had not one! It would then be insensible to your masculine perfection that makes such a havoc of it now.”
“Poor devil!” says he, very softly, and then again, “poor little pretty devil, I wish I were not such an extremely handsome man.”
“Po-or lit-tle pret-ty dev-il!” I repeated, dwelling on each syllable, for surely arrogance could no farther go.
“Now, then, woo away!” says he.
I knew that the real performance was not to be of the lightest kind, but if in any way it was to present the difficulties of this rehearsal, heaven help me through it! But I told myself not to be daunted by a boy, whose behaviour, when all was said, was only a piece of mummery. This present subjection of the Captain’s heart proved, however, one of the sternest businesses I ever undertook. It was a fortress walled with stone and flanked with batteries. Again and again I was repulsed in my advances; the energy of my glances, the fire of my speech, the assaults of my smiling, were defied and consistently cast back. Emblem certainly enjoyed it; I am sure the Captain did; and I—well, I found this sport of such an exhilarating kind that I began to direct my attacks in grim unflinching earnest. I began to forget Captain Grantley and Miss Prue, and the masquerader in a petticoat, in Anthony Dare, the hunted fugitive. For this was the Man who at last had come into my life. No doubt about it. My lord Me in his sublime unheed of our elaborate Court code of manners, had rudely forced an entrance into my sternly-guarded heart. He had arrived there by virtue of most audacious blustering, and alack! he looked as though he meant to stay.
Wherefore, though our present passages might appear extremely spirited play-acting to Emblem and to him, the more I was involved therein, and the warmer I became, the less distinctly could I say where frolic ended and reality began. Never was I so artful as in this amorous farce. A word and a look hitherto, had sufficed to fetch a sigh out of the choicest waistcoat. To be sure we were engaged upon a jest, but pretty soon Mrs. Polly Emblem was the only one of us who clung to that opinion. The lad had wit enough to see at once that my wooing grew too desperately stern to be mere mummery. When he repulsed my twentieth advance, and Mrs. Polly laughed outright at the fun without observing that her mistress was biting her lips with rage, the young villain, noting my occupation, and perhaps the mortification of my face, said: