“And you’re quite happy?” asked the captain.
“Y—yes,” replied Comethup, after turning the matter over in his mind for a moment. “You see, I can’t help thinking sometimes about you, and ’Linda, and——”
“Ah, that reminds me,” said the captain. “I saw ’Linda to-day, and told her I was coming to see you. She sends her love to you; I think she would have liked to come with me.”
The carriage drew up at the house, and the captain alighted. He held himself very erect, shabby little figure that he was, as he went up the steps and into the house. He was conducted at once to the room which had been set apart for him, and presently made his appearance in the drawing room, where quite a number of people had already assembled, and approached Miss Carlaw. She stood, as usual, with her hand on the boy’s shoulder. She seemed to know the captain’s step at once, and greeted him cordially.
“Well, captain, so you’ve really come to see how Prince Charming likes his kingdom? What do you think of him now, eh? Are you prepared, like every other Jack and Jill, to prostrate yourself and worship? What do you think of him?”
“I think he looks—looks very well,” said the captain.
“He’s reason to be,” she retorted, with a little note of defiance in her voice. “Prince Charming knows he’s only got to clap his hands, and his foolish old fairy godmother will get whatever he wants, if it’s to come from the other end of the world. Oh, we do things properly here, I’ll warrant you, sir—don’t we, my prince?”
Comethup took his usual place at table, at the opposite end to his aunt, and had the captain at his right hand. The boy, young as he was, could not but remark to himself what an incongruous figure the captain cut in that assembly; his quiet, delicate, old-world face and manner contrasted so strongly with the faces about him; his dress, perfectly neat though it was, seemed to belong to a bygone day when compared with theirs. Once or twice, too, when things were said and stories told which Comethup did not understand, the captain was the only one who did not laugh; indeed, he stiffened a little in his chair, and once laid his hand upon Comethup’s, where it rested on the table, and pressed it slightly, as though in sympathy.
Miss Charlotte Carlaw had been in a strange mood all the evening, had told her wildest stories, had laughed more loudly than any of her guests. After the men had lighted their cigars and cigarettes, and some of the women had begun also to smoke, she suddenly clapped her hands and cried out: “Where’s Prince Charming?—Come here, you dog, I want you.”