PLAYING WITH FIRE.
Captain Standish accepted Mrs. Piper’s invitation. He rode over to answer her note in person; and to give her another lesson in archery. This time Clementina was with her and shared in the lesson. Captain Standish had no objection to teach two pretty girls instead of one, but he preferred Mrs. Piper, as the prettier and more fascinating of the two. She possessed a great superiority too, in his eyes, as a married woman. It was the rule of this great man’s life, when he condescended to flirtation, to flirt with a married woman. No harm could come of it to himself. There was always the risk of the husband being made uncomfortable; but that was a detail. Captain Standish was not afraid of making a husband jealous, or even unhappy; but he was very much afraid of compromising himself by flirtation with a single woman, who might be absurd enough to expect him to marry her, and whose friends might make themselves disagreeable if he declined to do so.
He was therefore the very last man to walk into the silken snare that Mrs. Dulcimer had set for him. He was kind and courteous to Clementina, who was ready to ‘worship him’ or to ‘rave about him’—in the Porkman phraseology—at a moment’s notice; but he reserved his tender attentions, his thrilling looks and lowered tones, for Bella, for whom the sweet poison, the social deadly nightshade of an unprincipled man’s flatteries had already too great a charm. Of the extent of the captain’s influence over her mind Bella herself was not yet aware. Indeed, she believed herself hardened against any such influence by the counter poison of a previous love. She had loved once, and loved unhappily, and therefore could never love again. This she firmly believed, and, secure in this belief, walked blindfold into danger. Her pleasure in the captain’s society she ascribed to the triumph of parading him before the astonished eyes of Little Yafford, the delight of lording it over the Porkmans, the fact that Captain Standish was the fashion.
The dinner party was a success. It was made up of the élite of Little Yafford and the surrounding neighbourhood—people who had ‘places’ of twenty to thirty acres, and who were altogether the next best thing to county families—Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer, Colonel O’Shaughnessy, and Captain Standish. Clementina looked her prettiest, and was complimented on her likeness to her sister.
‘Bella,’ said the Vicar’s wife in a confidential tone, when the ladies were alone after dinner. ‘You are doing a noble thing for your sister. In my opinion Captain Standish is struck with her already.’
‘You are sanguine, dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ answered Bella, smiling. ‘I have not seen him particularly attentive to her.’
‘Perhaps not, but he has been particularly attentive to you. He would naturally begin in that way.’
Bella was not quite clear upon this point; she had little faith in Mrs. Dulcimer’s judgment. Were not the most miserable hours of her life, her one inexcusable sin, referable to that lady’s mistake? But she found it rather agreeable to have Clementina as a companion. The girl was grateful, and willing to be useful, and was not in the way.
Mrs. Dulcimer was so elated at the prospect of another brilliant match, to be brought about by her agency, that, towards the end of the evening, she took Mr. Piper into her confidence.
‘Charming man, Captain Standish, isn’t he?’ she asked.