The captain returned to his visitor in the parlor, after first stopping on his way to issue his orders for the walking excursion to Mrs. Wragge.
“I am shocked to have kept you waiting,” he said, sitting down again confidentially by Noel Vanstone’s side. “My only excuse is, that my niece had accidentally dressed her hair so as to defeat our object. I have been persuading her to alter it, and young ladies are apt to be a little obstinate on questions relating to their toilet. Give her a chair on that side of you when she comes in, and take your look at her neck comfortably before we start for our walk.”
Magdalen entered the room as he said those words, and after the first greetings were exchanged, took the chair presented to her with the most unsuspicious readiness. Noel Vanstone applied the Crucial Test on the spot, with the highest appreciation of the fair material which was the subject of experiment. Not the vestige of a mole was visible on any part of the smooth white surface of Miss Bygrave’s neck. It mutely answered the blinking inquiry of Noel Vanstone’s half-closed eyes by the flattest practical contradiction of Mrs. Lecount. That one central incident in the events of the morning was of all the incidents that had hitherto occurred, the most important in its results. That one discovery shook the housekeeper’s hold on her master as nothing had shaken it yet.
In a few minutes Mrs. Wragge made her appearance, and excited as much surprise in Noel Vanstone’s mind as he was capable of feeling while absorbed in the enjoyment of Magdalen’s society. The walking-party left the house at once, directing their steps northward, so as not to pass the windows of Sea-view Cottage. To Mrs. Wragge’s unutterable astonishment, her husband, for the first time in the course of their married life, politely offered her his arm, and led her on in advance of the young people, as if the privilege of walking alone with her presented some special attraction to him! “Step out!” whispered the captain, fiercely. “Leave your niece and Mr. Vanstone alone! If I catch you looking back at them, I’ll put the Oriental Cashmere Robe on the top of the kitchen fire! Turn your toes out, and keep step—confound you, keep step!” Mrs. Wragge kept step to the best of her limited ability. Her sturdy knees trembled under her. She firmly believed the captain was intoxicated.
The walk lasted for rather more than an hour. Before nine o’clock they were all back again at North Shingles. The ladies went at once into the house. Noel Vanstone remained with Captain Wragge in the garden. “Well,” said the captain, “what do you think now of Mrs. Lecount?”
“Damn Lecount!” replied Noel Vanstone, in great agitation. “I’m half inclined to agree with you. I’m half inclined to think my infernal housekeeper is mad.”
He spoke fretfully and unwillingly, as if the merest allusion to Mrs. Lecount was distasteful to him. His color came and went; his manner was absent and undecided; he fidgeted restlessly about the garden walk. It would have been plain to a far less acute observation than Captain Wragge’s, that Magdalen had met his advances by an unexpected grace and readiness of encouragement which had entirely overthrown his self-control.
“I never enjoyed a walk so much in my life!” he exclaimed, with a sudden outburst of enthusiasm. “I hope Miss Bygrave feels all the better, for it. Do you go out at the same time to-morrow morning? May I join you again?”
“By all means, Mr. Vanstone,” said the Captain, cordially. “Excuse me for returning to the subject—but what do you propose saying to Mrs. Lecount?”
“I don’t know. Lecount is a perfect nuisance! What would you do, Mr. Bygrave, if you were in my place?”