He spoke with affected hilarity; but Pixie was not so easily convinced, and shook her head incredulously as she replied—
“No—you are not happy, really—not through and through! Ye sigh in the middle of laughing, and think of something else when you pretend to listen. I’ve been in trouble meself. Once there was an awful time when the girls sent me to Coventry for weeks on end, and there was a horrid dull pain inside me, as if I’d swallowed up a lump of lead. Was someone unkind to you too?”
He laughed—a short, mirthless laugh—and pushed his hair from his brow. It was a strange thing that he should dream of confiding his story to this bit of a girl, yet never before had he known such an impulse to speak.
“No, Mademoiselle,” he said,—“not unkind; it was not in her nature to be that. The mistake was all on my side. I was a conceited coxcomb to think that she could ever care for me; but I did think it, and went on dreaming my foolish castle in the air, until one day it fell to the ground, and left me sitting among the ruins.”
“It was a heart affair, then! I thought it was,” cried Pixie shrewdly. “I heard a lot about heart affairs in Paris, and I had a sister once who was married. Her husband used to look just like you do when she was cross to him; but really and truly she wanted to be kind, and now they are married and living happily ever after. It will come all right for you too, some day!”
“No, never! There’s no hope of that. She married someone else. That was the news which came to me one day and wrecked my castle!”
“Oh, oh!—how could she! The misguided creature! And when she might have had you instead! I’d marry you myself if I were big enough!” cried Pixie in a fervour of indignation which was more soothing than any expressions of sympathy; and the Captain stretched out his hand and patted her tenderly on the shoulder.
“Would you really? That’s very sweet of you. Thank you, dear, for the compliment. We will be real good friends in any case, won’t we? and you will keep my confidence, for no one in this place knows anything about it. And we won’t talk of it any more, I think; it’s rather a sore subject, don’t you know. We might begin unpacking those baskets. The children will want their tea.”