“But, is that all? Riding with her father and another man! Why, there's nothing in that.”
“Yes, but there is though. You should have seen his look. And they all knew me well enough, but not one of them nodded even.”
“Well, there's not much in that after all. It may have been chance, or you may have fancied it.”
“No, one isn't quite such a fool. However, I have no right to complain, and I won't. I could bear it all well enough if he were not such a cold-hearted blackguard.”
“What, this fellow she was riding with?”
“Yes. He hasn't a heart the size of a pin's head. He'll break hers. He's a mean brute, too. She can't know him, though he has been after her this year and more. They must have forced her into it. Ah! it's a bitter business,” and he put his head between his hands, and East heard the deep catches of his laboring breath, as he sat by him, feeling deeply for him, but puzzled what to say.
“She can't be worth so much after all, Tom,” he said at last, “if she would have such a fellow as that. Depend upon it, she's not what you thought her.”
Tom made no answer; so the captain went on presently, thinking he had hit the right note.
“Cheer up, old boy. There's as good fish in the sea yet as ever came out of it. Don't you remember the song—whose is it? Lovelace's:—
“'If she be not fair for me,
What care I for whom she be?'”