This distinction suited Tregurtha uncommonly well. He liked the admiral, and he liked the admiral's niece. He did not see much of Miss Rosetta Villiers, for that damsel was always either attending to the farm or preparing for an examination. But she occasionally looked in upon the men, and had bright smiles for Richard, and a plate of fruit sometimes. She teased the admiral (who was completely under her rule). Sir John evidently liked and understood Rosetta. Lyndis was a complete puzzle to him. He could appreciate a fine woman; but Lyndis was more; she was a fine lady, and far too calm-spirited for the admiral's taste. She was afraid of him and his imperious way, and he knew it, and took a malicious pleasure in avenging himself on her indifference by startling projects of matrimony for her, accompanied by violent reprimands, which Lyndis took with a calm disdain coupled with fear.
Now, when he presumed to scold Rosetta, she first would melt into a regular child's fit of tears (which used to cause the admiral to clear his throat and blink his eyes, and retract certain over-fierce expressions); then she would flash into a little Spanish passion, pay the admiral back in some of his own coin, with the genuine stamp upon it, and quickly send him to the right-about. And this the admiral understood too, for he was a man who knocked under with a good grace when fairly worsted. Tregurtha was never weary of hearing the two joke together, and noting occasionally how, when the admiral wickedly strove to turn the joke against Rosetta herself or her sex, the young lady would throw her uncle a glance of her black eyes that shone with such masterful warning that the old commander would cough and change the subject, whilst Rosetta broke into a young, irrepressible laugh of victory.
Tregurtha commended himself to the lady by offering his help in the mathematics she required for her examinations. The logic which she also studied was at first beyond his ken, but he got over that difficulty by causing Roscoria to give him a fearful jorum of Jevons every evening, which he then passed on to the pretty student. Rosetta was much impressed; she marveled at the wide and varied talents of a mind that had remembered all the details of logic during a rough seafaring life like Tregurtha's. But if she admired his qualities, how was he affected by hers? Ah! that's the worst of it, always.
For, said Dick to Roscoria one afternoon, as that distinguished preceptor was on the point of joining his adoring disciples:
"Wish me good luck, old comrade: I am off on a forlorn hope."
"That child?" cried Roscoria, dropping an armful of the Clarendon Press series with resounding bang upon the floor.
"That child!" intoned Tregurtha, mechanically, with the voice of a captive spirit from a tomb. "I feel it is utterly hopeless madness; but I shan't be ashore much longer, and I must go to sea with a certainty behind me. I was never a man to go doubting when knowledge could be had for the asking. So I'll go and have my mind set at rest. I shall be satisfied this evening, I trust, and then I'll come back to you, Roscoria."
"Yes, you are sure of me, at any rate. I'm afraid you are making a mistake, old fellow; but I dare say you can't help it."
Pythias whistled sympathetically as Damon went out by the window with his hat over his brows and his teeth set.
Rosetta Villiers was playing about in the admiral's garden. At least, she thought she was working, but the sun was hot and there was a pleasant shade under that chestnut-tree. So she left off weeding and tying up roses, and sat dreamily down on a wooden seat to divide her attention between a book and a flitting dragon-fly. Tregurtha came walking informally through the garden, for was he not hand-in-glove with the admiral? Rosetta looked up brightly, extended her hand to Jevons in smiling appeal, and pointed to the other end of her rustic sofa.