“Now, I’ll tell you just what I think,” she went on, resting one hand on his breast, and staring more earnestly into his face: “I’m a free-born American, and you are one half English and the other half Spanish.”
“Bless her,” he reflected with inward perturbation, “if she only knew!”
“And I have independent ways, and your European style of treating women doesn’t suit me.”
“What style is it, darling, if I may ask?”
“A kind of lordly style. You seem to think, ‘This woman is mine. I can do what I like with her.’”
“A vile style, sweetheart,—a much-to-be-condemned style, quite unknown in America.”
“Now, as I say, if you will do as I tell you, you may make me think a great deal of you in a very short time. I want to put you back in your proper position. You see I have known you too long, and you have known me too well. You must try to be meek and humble like a gentleman just getting acquainted with me; and you must always try to please me and not order me about. Don’t say, ‘Come for a walk.’ Say, ‘Won’t you be kind enough to take a little stroll with me?’”
“Very well, darling. Won’t you be kind enough to take a little stroll with me?”
“Not this evening, Captain Fordyce,” she responded, graciously. “Perhaps to-morrow morning. Now another thing. Don’t take too much notice of me. Let me hear your praises from other people. Sometimes you brag a little about the way you run a ship.”
“I never do,” he said, hastily.