'I did not mean to be complimentary, Miss Gordon. I never do,' protested the traveller.
'In this case, sir, you could not help it.'
The fair-haired man looked frankly and freely at the last speaker. When he withdrew his glance, he found the eyes of the girl fixed on him with a smile of protest against the civil speeches of the man at the foot.
'I meant,' said the thin man, 'that you represent many nations. I remember, at least, all about that. Your father was Scotch, your mother a French Canadian; you were born in India, and brought up in Australia. Is not that so?'
'No fish, thank you. I never eat fish. I was born at sea; and people born at sea never eat fish. I have some reason for remembering these facts connected with you, for I too am a mixum-getherum lot. My father was a pirate, or something of that kind. I am a parishioner of Stepney, a place which has never yet had the honour of seeing me. I have no dread of being moved on to my parish, for I know I shall end my days by being blown from a gun for piratical practices on the high seas. Before that happens, I hope, Miss Gordon, to have the pleasure of meeting you often, for you are as great a cosmopolitan as myself. Do you intend remaining here long?'
'Ah, I had intended clearing out of this hole in a week or so; but what you have told me may alter my mind.'
'That from the gentleman who _never_ pays compliments,' said the solid-looking man at the foot of the table. 'By-the-way,' he continued, 'I can't make out Miss Gordon to be a cosmopolitan. It seems to me she is wonderfully British; one of the United Kingdoms, our two greatest colonies, and our vast dependency seem to me to make up a very good British woman.'
The face of the girl grew grave for a moment. She turned fully to the man at the foot, and said, in a quiet, impressive voice,--
'I am glad you think me British. I should be sorry to be thought anything else, for my father lost his life in India under the British flag.'
The fair young man put down his knife and fork, and looked across the table at the girl. He cleared his throat, grew red in the face, cleared his throat again, dropped his eyes to his plate, grew still redder, and resumed eating his fish.
The last remark of the talkative man killed the conversation, and no more was said during the dinner than a few feeble sentences by the ladies on the merits of the sermons they had heard in the forenoon.