Thus this astonishing young woman. It all but petrified him. He hesitated coldly.
“Madam, I can mean no discourtesy, but they are for the eye of the Ambassador.”
“And the Ambassador,” replies Sir William gravely, “can do nothing with the Queen but through the Ambassadress. You must find Her Ladyship in arguments, Captain Nelson, though she has plenty of her own.”
He obeyed on Sir William’s assurance and the bright quick eye of the lady. She appeared to master all he said with precision, wasted not a moment, rehearsed his points, and rising, looked at the watch at her girdle and prepared to depart for her fixed audience with the Queen.
“It takes the form of a friendly visit with talk and refreshments,” says she, “but I shall bring back news for all that. Will you not take Captain Nelson for a drive, Sir William? The more the people see and applaud him the better for our ends.”
She left the room, with his astonished eyes following her.
“Her Ladyship is the key of the situation in Naples,” says Sir William easily. “Shall we drive?”
They found her waiting in the reception room when they returned, entertaining a party of the Agamemnons with the most delicious singing, not a care on her bright brow as she warbled. She enticed the first lieutenant into attempting a duo with her, and the astonished Nelson, who had never heard his voice uplifted but in an order or to outshout the storm, discovered that he possessed a tenor of excellence in his third in command. Lord, how she drew them out! The young men were standing about her, talking, laughing, telling Her Ladyship confidentially of adventures Nelson had never heard of though he kept his subordinates at no awful distance and believed he knew their hearts.
“And since I am certain you are all in rags after this long cruising, for what are men’s fingers!” says she with a fine scorn, “I insist that all you gentlemen send your wardrobes ashore and I and my women will send you back refitted—is not that the sea word?—to the Admiral. We won’t beat the French with a ragged regiment, so we won’t!”
They thanked her cordially—who could refuse such a warm heart? She constituted herself their she-admiral and commanded that the little sick midshipman Bowen should be sent ashore for her own and her mother’s nursing—for good Mrs. Cadogan was enthroned on a settee in purple and fine linen, listening to the Ambassadress’s sallies. And then, when she had them all laughing and talking, she glided up against Captain Nelson with lowered secret eyes.