‘Mr. Piper may approve of such goings on,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I should, if I were in his place. Look at him bending down to speak to her, and look at her, giggling and blushing like a silly school girl. If you don’t call that flirting the word must have a different meaning from what it had in my time.’
The jerk of Miss Coyle’s bonnet seemed to imply that she had done her share of flirting in the days that were no more, and was an acute judge of such matters.
Mrs. Namby looked at her with awe, marvelling what valiant knight of an extinct chivalry could ever have had the courage to flirt with Miss Coyle.
‘You really must let me ride over some morning and give you a good long lesson. It excruciates me to see those three Porkman Gorgons getting the best of it in this way.’
That was what Captain Standish was bending down to say, with that air of grave reverence which from the distance looked tender. He was not brilliant in conversation. His talent had all gone into field sports and manly accomplishments, from foxhunting, hammer-throwing, cricket, billiards—down to skittles. He could give any man odds at all these. It was astonishing what respect he won from his fellow-men on account of this gift. Had he been a second Newton or Herschel, he could not have carried things with a higher hand, or more keenly felt his superiority to the ruck of mankind.
Then, again, he had that calm sense of ascendency which distinguishes the man who has never been in want of money. You can see it in his looks. There is the tranquil arrogance of a being who has never shivered at the rap of a dun, or quailed at opening a lawyer’s letter, or been politely reminded by his banker that his account is overdrawn.
‘You must really allow me to teach you,’ pleaded Captain Standish. ‘I used to win prizes at this kind of thing when I was a lad.’
His words were humble enough, but his tone meant, ‘You ought to be intensely grateful for my condescension in offering you such a privilege.’
It was Captain Standish’s first appearance at Little Yafford Park, and Bella was fluttered by the triumph of getting him there—at last. His brother officers had come very often, from the blue-nosed colonel to the callow cornets, and had eaten and drunken and been jolly with Mr. Piper, and voted the whole establishment ‘capital fun.’ But Captain Standish was a different order of being, and never went anywhere till he had made people sensible of his importance and exclusiveness, by holding himself aloof. The Miss Porkmans and the Miss Wigzells were rarely seen without one of the callow cornets in their train. Mr. Porkman was on the most familiar terms with Colonel O’Shaughnessy, the blue-nosed commanding officer, who liked the Porkman cellar and the Porkman cook, and was not too refined to tolerate the Porkmans themselves. But Captain Standish was not to be had so easily. Cooks and cellars were indifferent to him. He affected a Spartan simplicity in his diet—drank only the driest champagne, and that seldom—dined on a slice of mutton and a tumbler of Vichy water, frankly avowed his abhorrence of provincial dinner parties, refused five invitations out of six, and, after accepting the sixth, disappointed his host at the eleventh hour. Can it be wondered that, in a society of newly rich provincials, Captain Standish was eminently popular?
His dog-cart, severely painted darkest olive, black harness, no plating, high-stepping brown horse, neat groom in olive livery, and unexceptionable boots, plain black hat and cockade, made a sensation whenever it appeared in the High Street, or flashed meteor-like past the broad plate glass windows of the villas on the London road.