Part 75 (2/2)
”Dear Uncle, what I thought was, if you would be so kind as to use your influence with the Company in his favor. Tell them that if he did miss his s.h.i.+p it was not by a fault, but by a n.o.ble virtue; tell them that it was to save a fellow creature's life--a young lady's life--one that did not deserve it from him, your own niece's; tell them it is not for your honor he should be disgraced. Oh, uncle, you know what to say so much better than I do.”
Bazalgette grinned, and straightway resolved to perpetrate a practical joke, and a very innocent one. ”Well,” said he, ”the best way I can think of to meet your views will be, I think, to get him appointed to the new s.h.i.+p the Company is building.”
Lucy opened her eyes, and the blood rushed to her cheek. ”Oh uncle, do I hear right? a s.h.i.+p? Are you so powerful? are you so kind? do you love your poor niece so well as all this? Oh, Uncle Bazalgette!”
”There is no end to my power,” said the old man, solemnly; ”no limit to my goodness, no bounds to my love for my poor niece. Are you in a hurry, my poor niece? Shall we have his commission down to-morrow, or wait a month?”
”To-morrow? is it possible? Oh, yes! I count the minutes till I say to his sister, 'There, Miss Dodd, I have friends who value me too highly to let me lie under these galling obligations.' Dear, dear uncle, I don't mind being under them to you, because I love you” (kisses).
”And not Mr. Dodd?”
”No, dear; and that is the reason I would rather give him a s.h.i.+p than--the only other thing that would make him happy. And really, but for your goodness, I should have been tempted to--ha! ha! Oh, I am so happy now. No; much as I admire my preserver's courage and delicacy and unselfishness and goodness, I don't love him; so, but for this, he MUST have been unhappy for life, and then I should have been miserable forever.”
”Perfectly clear and satisfactory, my dear. Now, if the commission is to be down to-morrow, you must not stay here, because I have other letters to write, to go by the same courier that takes my application for the s.h.i.+p.”
”And do you really think I will go till I have kissed you, Uncle Bazalgette?”
”On a subject so important, I hardly venture to give an opin--hallo!
kissing, indeed? Why, it is like a young wolf flying at horseflesh.”
”Then that will teach you not to be kinder to me than anybody else is.”
Lucy ran out radiant and into the garden. Here she encountered Kenealy, and, coming on him with a blaze of beauty and triumph, fired a resolution that had smoldered in him a day or two.
He twirled his mustache and--popped briefly.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AFTER the first start of rueful astonishment, the indignation of the just fired Lucy's eyes.
She scolded him well. ”Was this his return for all her late kindness?”
She hinted broadly at the viper of Aesop, and indicated more faintly an animal that, when one bestows the choicest favors on it, turns and rends one. Then, becoming suddenly just to the brute creation, she said: ”No, it is only your abominable s.e.x that would behave so perversely, so ungratefully.”
”Don't understand,” drawled Kenealy, ”I thought you would laike it.”
”Well, you see, I don't laike it.”
”You seemed to be getting rather spooney on me.”
”Spooney! what is that? one of your mess-room terms, I suppose.”
”Yaas; so I thought you waunted me to pawp.”
”Captain Kenealy, this subterfuge is unworthy of you. You know perfectly well why I distinguished you. Others pestered me with their attachments and nonsense, and you spared me that annoyance. In return, I did all in my power to show you the grateful friends.h.i.+p I thought you worthy of. But you have broken faith; you have violated the clear, though tacit understanding that subsisted between us, and I am very angry with you. I have some little influence left with my aunt, sir, and, unless I am much mistaken, you will shortly rejoin the army, sir.”
”What a boa! what a dem'd boa!”
<script>