‘Who is Mr. David Heddegan?’ he asked, as indifferently as lay in his power.
She informed him the bearer of the name was a general merchant of Giant’s Town, St. Maria’s island—her father’s nearest neighbour and oldest friend.
‘Then we shan’t see anything more of you on the mainland?’ inquired the schoolmaster.
‘O, I don’t know about that,’ said Miss Trewthen.
‘Here endeth the career of the belle of the boarding-school your father was foolish enough to send you to. A “general merchant’s” wife in the Lyonesse Isles. Will you sell pounds of soap and pennyworths of tin tacks, or whole bars of saponaceous matter, and great tenpenny nails?’
‘He’s not in such a small way as that!’ she almost pleaded. ‘He owns ships, though they are rather little ones!’
‘O, well, it is much the same. Come, let us walk on; it is tedious to stand still. I thought you would be a failure in education,’ he continued, when she obeyed him and strolled ahead. ‘You never showed power that way. You remind me much of some of those women who think they are sure to be great actresses if they go on the stage, because they have a pretty face, and forget that what we require is acting. But you found your mistake, didn’t you?’
‘Don’t taunt me, Charles.’ It was noticeable that the young schoolmaster’s tone caused her no anger or retaliatory passion; far otherwise: there was a tear in her eye. ‘How is it you are at Pen-zephyr?’ she inquired.
‘I don’t taunt you. I speak the truth, purely in a friendly way, as I should to any one I wished well. Though for that matter I might have some excuse even for taunting you. Such a terrible hurry as you’ve been in. I hate a woman who is in such a hurry.’
‘How do you mean that?’