Mrs. Lecount accepted the proposal. She was perfectly well aware that
her escort had lost himself on purpose, but that discovery exercised no
disturbing influence on the smooth amiability of her manner. Her day of
reckoning with the captain had not come yet--she merely added the new
item to her list, and availed herself of the camp-stool. Captain Wragge
stretched himself in a romantic attitude at her feet, and the two
determined enemies (grouped like two lovers in a picture) fell into as
easy and pleasant a conversation as if they had been friends of twenty
years' standing.
"I know you, ma'am!" thought the captain, while Mrs. Lecount was talking
to him. "You would like to catch me tripping in my ready-made science,
and you wouldn't object to drown me in the Professor's Tank!"
"You villain with the brown eye and the green!" thought Mrs. Lecount, as
the captain caught the ball of conversation in his turn; "thick as your
skin is, I'll sting you through it yet!"
In this frame of mind toward each other they talked fluently on general
subjects, on public affairs, on local scenery, on society in England
and society in Switzerland, on health, climate, books, marriage
and money--talked, without a moment's pause, without a single
misunderstanding on either side for nearly an hour, before Magdalen
and Noel Vanstone strayed that way and made the party of four complete
again.
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