“Why, madam, it so happened that I had a chance to pleasure Admiral Watson, and he asked me afterwards how he might serve me. Miss Freyne won’t pretend to be ignorant what my request was, and that it was granted is shown by my presence here.”
“Indeed, sir, I should have looked to find you elsewhere, I’ll assure you.”
“Perhaps, madam, you had been better pleased so?”
“I protest, sir, I don’t understand you. You’ll allow me to say that you have used me to-night in a style for which I have given you no warrant.”
“Questionless, madam, that is so. ’Tis no affair of mine that I find you surrounded with a crowd of chattering fools, that think themselves at liberty to prate of the favour in which they stand with a lady who, when I had the honour of meeting her first, could not hear the word love mentioned without a blush.”
“I vow, sir, this outrage is too much! I have endured a vast amount from you——”
“Only from me, madam? All these gentlemen in their laced clothes, with their talk of love and favour—has any one of ’em ever laid his heart and fortune at your feet?”
“Yes, sir, every one, and some more than once.” Oh, Amelia, if you could guess how I triumphed at that moment, forgetting, as I saw him stand confounded, the resolution I had taken never to boast of the honour done me by the gentlemen whose partiality I could not return. Supposing, even, that the fellow had cause to be ill-pleased with his Araminta, why should he vent his spleen on me? I drew my hand from his, and was turning away, with my head well in the air, when he hastened after me.
“Madam, dearest madam, pardon me, I was wrong; I have abused your goodness. Pray, madam, give me the chance to justify myself so far as may be. You’ll permit me to wait upon you to-morrow?”
I think he would have said more, but we were now in sight of the rest of the company. I was not minded to allow him to imagine that ’twas to him all the other gentlemen owed their ill success; and I said, very sedately—