'Your Scottish eyes cannot forgive that,' said Dolores laughing, as she recalled some of Lewie Baronald's complaints on the same subject; 'but people cannot live on scenery.'
'So the great Samuel Johnson has written.'
'Who is he?' asked Dolores.
'A great lexicographer—a wonderful English savant—who believes in a ghost in London, yet discredited the late earthquake at Lisbon. I think I have seen you at the Vyverberg with Lewis Baronald of my battalion; he has the honour of being known to you.'
'He visits us,' replied Dolores, the flower-like tints of her sweet face growing brighter as the Earl spoke.
'He is a fine and handsome fellow, young Baronald; but it is strange that he should wish to quit the Hague when it possesses such peculiar attractions,' said the Earl markedly, and with a courteous bow.
'Quit the Hague!' repeated Dolores, as if she had not heard him aright.
'I do not know whether the desire to do so, has any connection with his uncle's scheme for the recapture or restitution to Holland of the Island of Goree, off the coast of Senegal, in defiance of the old Treaty of Nimeguen, which gave it to France, a scheme which will win him the favour of their Mightinesses; but young Baronald's name was sent, through me this morning, to the Director-General of Infantry, for instant foreign service.'
'Foreign service!' whispered Dolores, in an almost breathless voice, while her white throat gave a sharp nervous gasp, and her long lashes drooped over her beautiful eyes. 'Surely, my lord, this must be some mistake. Lewie—he had no desire to leave Holland, in any way—he dreaded nothing so much as the departure of the Brigade to Britain; and this—this——'
'No mistake, I assure you,' interrupted the Earl, all unaware of the astonishment he was exciting and the pain he was inflicting, and both of which he must have perceived had not the Heer van Otterbeck, fortunately for Dolores, approached at that moment, and tapping and proffering his Sèvres china snuff-box, 'buttonholed' him on the inevitable subjects, the quarrel between Britain and Holland, Paul Jones in the Texel, and Commodore Fielding's conduct in firing on the Dutch fleet in the Channel, which the Commodore did with hearty goodwill.