"O, yes; I understand all that: ha! ha!"
"No man in the service——"
"What! do you really love this girl, Oliver?"
"Yes; on my honour, I do."
"Very possibly: but—I speak as an old friend—you do not mean seriously?"
He started, and coloured deeply.
"I know not," he muttered, hurriedly: "and yet, Claude, I cannot be so base as to think of her otherwise than as a man of honour ought to do. Her relationship to the old padre is, to say the best of it, somewhat dubious: but then, she is so good-tempered and ladylike—so gentle, so beautiful, and winning—that I cannot, for the soul of me, help loving her; and I pledged——"
"Pledged! Maladetto! as they say here, are you engaged to her?"
"Why, I did not make a particular—that is to say, not quite an engagement—pshaw! what am I talking here about?"
"I see! Ah, Oliver, you are evidently very deeply dipped with her: you cannot steal a march upon me. Let me advise you, Lascelles, to be cautious in your affair with this young lady. Your family, your fortune, all entitle you——"