“I hope your sister will like me,” said Eugenia, thoughtfully. “It is with her Miss Eyrecourt lives, is it not? I think I liked Miss Eyrecourt, at least I think so now,” with a smile and a blush which made her lover congratulate himself on his reticence.
Mr Dalrymple and Major Thanet both opened their eyes when they heard the news.
“Well, my dear,” said the former, oracularly, “I trust you will never have reason to regret your share in the affair;” but to the young people themselves he was “mean” enough to be profusely congratulatory.
“Just like a man,” thought poor Mrs Dalrymple. “If Henry were the least given to clairvoyance, and that sort of thing, I should really think he went off yesterday on purpose that he might be able to put the responsibility on to me.”
Captain Chancellor’s friend did not mince the matter. He had scented one of Beauchamp’s little “affaires,” but the actual dénouement so suddenly announced to him by his companion was rather startling.
“Going to be married,” he exclaimed; “and this morning you had as much idea of anything of the kind—at least in this quarter,” pointedly, “as—as,” the gallant officer hesitated, at a loss for a sufficiently forcible expression, “as I have of marrying the man in the moon.”
Beauchamp laughed shortly and contemptuously. Major Thanet’s perceptions were not of the quickest.
“Are you sure you know what you are about, my dear fellow?” he inquired confidentially.
“Perfectly, thank you,” answered Captain Chancellor, and the tone of the three words was unmistakable. So Major Thanet took his cue, and not being behind the rest of the world in his capability of “bearing perfectly like a Christian the misfortunes of another,” resigned himself with a cigar, and a sigh over “Chancellor’s infatuation,” to the apparently inevitable, and being introduced to Eugenia a day or two after by her fiancé, congratulated her with as much graceful fervour as if no piece of news of the kind had ever in his life afforded him such unmingled satisfaction.
Eugenia thought him charming, seeing him through the flattering medium of his position as one of Beauchamp’s oldest friends, and was a very little surprised that the cordiality of her expressions regarding him hardly appeared as gratifying to her lover as she could have expected.