“I don’t know, sir. Oh pray, don’t be so sharp with your girl. He—he said——”
“He has offered to insult you, madam?” demanded the Captain, in his sternest voice, which Mr Freyne took as a rebuke.
“I’ll manage my own family, sir, if you please, so pray don’t favour us with your strait-laced opinion of masquerades at this moment. What did this person say, miss?”
“I—I believe he invited me to run away with him, sir.”
“You en’t certain? Sure the girl’s a fool! She cries out that a person has insulted her, and she don’t know who he is, nor can’t tell what he said. Where is this gentleman?”
“I—I left him there, sir,” pointing to the settee where we had sat.
“And there en’t a living creature to be seen! I fear, miss, you are one of those that flee when no man pursueth.”
“Sure, sir,” says Captain Colquhoun, coming to my help, “you can’t doubt but Miss Freyne’s delicacy has been wounded by the liberties of speech this person has permitted himself. If he have drunk too freely, he should be removed from the place, both for his own sake and others’, and will questionless see the propriety of offering an apology on the morrow. Was it the gentleman habited as King Lewis the Fourteenth, with whom I saw you dance not long ago, madam?”
“It was, sir, but I can’t imagine who he may be. He spoke only French.”
“You see, sir?” Captain Colquhoun turned to my papa. “I fear Miss has been exposed to the rudeness of one of those rascally fellows that make a practice of insulting ladies at gatherings of this sort, feeling secure of impunity through their disguises. Did he first accost you, madam?”