‘A conquest has been made,’ I answered. ‘He is a very handsome fellow. And now you shall tell me that he is married.’
‘No more than you are.’
‘Engaged to be married, then?’
‘I’ll not answer that. Sailors are sailors.’
‘I have thoroughly enjoyed myself,’ said I, kissing her.
‘Do you think, my dear, that it is quite in order you should ask Captain Butler to dine with you to-morrow?’
‘Quite in order, aunt. If I am not to do what I like I will drown myself.’
But I kissed her again after I had said this as an apology for the strength with which I had spoken, and went downstairs.
Will and Captain Butler saw me to my house. The streets were pretty full and flaring. The night fine. I took Will’s arm, and the three of us went along leisurely past the Mint into Leman Street, and so into the Commercial Road. No very romantic walk, truly, though in this great world the woods and groves of the poets are not the only haunts of emotion. There is sentiment in the East as well as in the West; and in what do the passions of Whitechapel differ from those of Tyburnia?
My maid was sitting up for me. Twelve o’clock struck soon after I reached home, so you will guess we had not hurried. For the first time for many a long night I could not sleep. I lay thinking all the time of Captain Butler. I had fallen in love with him, and I wondered at myself. No man that I had ever before met had made the least impression upon me. I knew my own heart well down to this moment—I had never given men nor their love a thought. In what, then, lay the magic of this man? I was so much in love with him that, had he stayed at my door after Will Johnstone had gone away and asked me to be his sweetheart and marry him, I should have consented. I was distracted with vexation and delight. All night long I lay thinking of him, and if I slept in snatches it was but to dream of him, so that, whether I was awake or slept, he was present to me. I felt that I must find out, and quickly find out, if he had a sweetheart. If so, why then I had not yet let go of the reins; but I must make haste, or the bit would be hard in the teeth and I should be run away with.