“That has nothing to do with me,” I answered curtly.
“Oh, but it may have, and much. I noticed when you came down to luncheon yesterday that you are very deeply in love with Miss Hemster.”
“My dear Miss Hilda,—I claim the right to call you that,—when one remembers that you never took your eyes from your plate at luncheon I must say that you have most extraordinary powers of observation. You thought I was high and mighty toward Mr. Hemster, which was not the case, and now you assert that I was in love with Miss Hemster, which is equally beside the fact.”
“Of course you are bound to say that, and I may add that although I am offering you advice I am not asking confidences in exchange. I assert that you fell in love with Miss Hemster during your charming ramble through Nagasaki; falling in love with a haste which seems to be characteristic of you, and which totally changes the ideas I had previously held regarding an Englishman.”
“Yes, a number of your notions concerning the men of my country were entirely erroneous, as I took the liberty of pointing out to you last night.”
“So you did, but actions speak louder than words, and I form my conclusions from your actions. Very well, propose to Miss Hemster; I believe she would accept you, and I further believe that you would prove the salvation of the girl. Her father would make no objection, for I see he already likes you; but in any case he would offer no opposition to anything that his daughter proposed. His life is devoted, poor man, to ministering to her whims and caprices, so you are certain of the parental blessing, and that would carry with it, as I have pointed out, the full purse.”
“You spoke of the Prince of Darkness just now, Miss Stretton, so I will appropriate your simile and say that if there were an unmarried Princess of Darkness I would sooner try my luck with her than with Miss Hemster.”
“Oh, nonsense! Miss Hemster is a good-hearted girl if only she’d been rightly trained. You would tame her. I know no man so fitted to be the modern Petruchio, and I am fond enough of the drama to say I would like to see a modern rendering of ‘The Taming of the Shrew.”
“She’ll never be tamed by me, Miss Stretton.”
“She has been, Mr. Tremorne, only you spoiled your lesson by your apology. You must not make a mistake like that again. If you had stood your ground, preserving a distant and haughty demeanour, with a frown on your noble brow, pretty Miss Gertrude would soon have come around to you, wheedling, flattering, and most exquisitely charming, as she well knows how to be. You could then have caught her on the rebound, as the novels put it, just, in fact, as I have managed to catch you to-night. You will be very thankful in the morning that I refused to retain my advantage.”