“Jenny, get away!” said Dolly--words not meant for him to hear, but he had grave command of countenance.
“This lays me under one more obligation:” Carne spoke in a low voice, and with a smile of diffidence which reminded her of Scudamore, though the two smiles were as different as night and day. “I have taken a great liberty in asking you to come, and that multiplies my gratitude for your good-will. For my own sake alone I would not have dared to sue this great favour from you, though I put it so, in terror of alarming you. But it is for my own sake also, since anything evil to you would be terrible to me.”
“No one can wish to hurt me,” she answered, looking up at him bravely, and yet frightened by his gaze, “because I have never harmed any one. And I assure you, sir, that I have many to defend me, even when my father is gone from home.”
“It is beyond doubt. Who would not rush to do so? But it is from those who are least suspected that the danger comes the worst. The most modest of all gentlemen, who blushes like a damsel, or the gallant officer devoted to his wife and children, or the simple veteran with his stars, and scars, and downright speech--these are the people that do the wrong, because no one believes it is in them.”
“Then which of the three is to carry me off from home, and friends, and family--Lieutenant Scudamore, Captain Stubbard, or my own godfather, Lord Nelson?”
This young man nourished a large contempt for the intellect of women, and was therefore surprised at the quickness and spirit of the girl whom he wished to terrify. A sterner tone must be used with her.
“I never deal in jokes,” he said, with a smile of sad sympathy for those who do; “my life is one perpetual peril, and that restrains facetiousness. But I can make allowance for those who like it.”
Miss Dolly, the pet child of the house, and all the people round it--except the gardener, Mr. Swipes, who found her too inquisitive--quick as she was, could not realise at once the possibility of being looked down upon.
“I am sorry that you have to be so grave,” she said, “because it prevents all enjoyment. But why should you be in such continual danger? You promised to explain it, on Saturday, only you had no time then. We are all in danger from the French, of course, if they ever should succeed in landing. But you mean something more than that; and it seems so hard, after all your losses, that you should not be safe from harm.”