Something in her appearance amused him as she came gliding down the long corridor, and he smiled a smile so broad that it threatened to degenerate into a grin. However, he controlled himself when she approached him, and said, politely, “Good morning, did you sleep well? You didn’t sleep at all!” he exclaimed, bringing her to a standstill, and putting an anxious finger on the dark semicircles under her eyes. “You were frightened to death in that great room.”
“I was not frightened. I didn’t sleep because I wanted to think,” she replied; “also I was very angry with a young boy.”
“What young boy?” he asked, cajolingly, as he drew her into a near writing-room to avoid a bevy of ladies on their way to the dining-room.
“A boy that came when I rang the bell.”
“A bell-boy. What did he do?”
“He called me ‘ma’am,’ and when I asked him what he meant he said, ‘Beg pardon, Mrs. Fordyce!’ How could you,—how dare you?”
Captain Fordyce suppressed his amusement. “Well, are you not Mrs. Fordyce?”
“No; you must not write me down your wife. I want to be Miss Danvers.”
“Have you no regard for my reputation, pussy-cat?”
“You said young ladies could travel with captains.”