“Well, it cannot be helped now; you must make yourself so interesting and agreeable that he will prefer your society to that of any one’s else; you must monopolize him during the voyage, and when we are once settled, I will see that she does not have any spare time to flirt.”
“Talk about her having a fall,” continued Isabel Coolidge, indignantly. “Alma saw the whole proceeding, and says it was nothing but a stumble. She said a gentleman caught her, and saved her from going to the floor, and she lay back in his arms as helplessly and gracefully as any heroine in a novel.”
“I have not much doubt that she is artful, and would not scruple to take advantage of Wilbur’s weakness for pretty faces, notwithstanding she appears so meek and demure.”
“Meek and demure, mamma! Why, she is anything but that. She has the manners and bearing of a little queen!” interrupted Miss Coolidge.
“Well, but she is very quiet, and does not appear to be seeking his attentions; but, as I said before, we cannot help it now; all we can do is to watch them closely.”
“Never fear but that we can do that with our sharp eyes; and with you and I both on the lookout, I reckon we can manage them,” laughed the young lady.
“Yes; and if we find any indications of anything serious upon Wilbur’s part, I will find some excuse for shipping her off our hands as soon as we land. I will not have my son’s prospects ruined by a poverty-stricken governess,” replied the haughty woman, sternly.
They moved away from the place where they had been standing, and the young Englishman resumed his pacings, a smile of ineffable scorn curling his fine lips.
“A poverty-stricken governess, indeed!” he muttered between his teeth; “and I would not have her prospects for future happiness ruined by the son of such a woman! Poor child!” and his face softened into tenderness; “then she has been reduced to that cruel necessity, and she will have a hard time of it if left to the tender mercies of those two. At all events,” he continued, “I will manage some way to get acquainted with her before the voyage is ended, and return her cuff button. I shall miss it, too, for it has lain so long in its place that it seems like a precious talisman.”
He took it from the pocket of his vest as he spoke—that beautiful little trifle of black enamel and gold, with its sparkling initial in the center, inclosed in its brilliant circle.