These things were, however, all matters of hearsay to Mrs. Ellicott, for in the company of ladies who so courtly as Captain Jack? Who so gentle in speech, winning in manner, delicate and apt in paying compliments and doing honour to the sex as he? So, whilst the young admired and listened with pleased faces and heightened colour, prudent mothers hovered round their daughters whenever the captain approached them.
During the few minutes that he held converse with Kathleen at the carriage window, Mrs. Ellicott had shown as plainly as possible that his presence was anything but agreeable to herself. A stiff inclination of the head in response to his low bow, as brief replies as were consistent with civility to his inquiries after her health, and a reserve and stiffness of manner very much unlike Mrs. Ellicott, marked her reception of Captain Torrance.
These indications of the elder lady's feelings only amused Captain Jack, and again he asked himself, "What care I whether the aunt frowns or not, so long as Kathleen smiles, and a little compliment from my lips can bring that lovely colour to her cheeks? She is pretty enough and sweet enough for a man to give his heart to, quite irrespective of her more substantial attractions," mused the captain. "If I were a rich man, instead of being worse than poor, in debt, I should delight to lay my fortune at her feet. Knowing this, I have less compunction about taking hers, if I can get it, along with her sweet self. How like her mother she is! Fair, and with the same lovely Irish eyes that poor Mrs. Mountford had. I could never name the colour, and sometimes I thought they were deep grey, at others violet, but both mother's and daughter's were of the tint that I never saw except in an Irish girl's head. They remind one, by their liquid brightness, of the glorious nights we see now and then, when the stars seem as if they were fairly trembling and quivering with light. My Adela was handsomer than most fair women, but she was not to name beside Kathleen Mountford."
"I wish Ralph were like his mother, instead of being such a ridiculous image of me. I do not want the boy to grow up another Captain Jack, and sometimes I think, if his face were a reflection of Adela's, it would help me to be a better man, by reminding me of all she was to me. I love the boy even more for his mother's sake than for his own." No one could doubt the captain's affection for his son, however much opinion might be divided as to his manner of showing it. The redeeming trait in his past life had been his unswerving devotion to his wife, during the few years they spent together. He might well love her when living, and reverence her memory when dead.
She had given him her whole heart, when men and women were looking coldly upon him. She had refused to listen when friends would have told her hard truths and whispered words of warning. She had repaired his damaged fortune by the gift of her own, and thought nothing too good to bestow upon him.
Captain Torrance might spend his wife's money as recklessly as he chose; if only he were the happier for doing it, she never complained. Her single regret was, that she had no more to give. It was perhaps well for Mrs. Torrance that she did not live long enough to become fully acquainted with the darker, more selfish sides of her husband's character. These would have shown themselves, had money failed during their short married life. There was no scarcity of cash, no call for self-denial on the captain's part, so he remained an ideal husband in the eyes of Mrs. Torrance, and he really loved her as deeply as his nature permitted.
Her last look was for him. Her last words were, "I only care about dying because I have to leave you, Jack, and our child." Her last act had been to place unreservedly in his hands the small portion of her fortune which up to then she had held in her own right.
"You shall have it to the last penny, dear," she had said. "There are only you and Ralph. No fear of your failing to care well for him."
And so he did and had done, according to his idea of caring, during the years that had passed since the death of his wife.