CHAPTER VII.
WHICH TREATS OF TREASONS, STRATAGEMS, AND SPOILS.
CALCUTTA, April ye 15th.
Well, Amelia, Mr Fraser is departed, and I have not seen him since he turned his back on me and strode out of the varanda. I don’t know whether he desired me to understand his visit as a final and never-to-be-repeated offer of his affections, so that, once refused, the chance of gaining ’em would not present itself again, but his acts seem to give countenance to the notion. So then, my dear, your Sylvia finds herself deserted, but in such a mood, I am thankful to say, that she would not lower herself to call the young gentleman back, even were he descending the steps at this moment. My dear Miss Turnor won’t be surprised to hear that her friend has been busy summing up Mr Fraser’s defects, in order the more easily to fortify her mind against the reflection that she has lost him. Here’s a portion of the list: Item, the gentleman is proud; item, he is over-prudent; item, he resents the discovery of his faults; item, he wickedly risqued his own life and that of another person in a duel over a word; item—but the total would be too long. In short, your Sylvia is occupied, with extreme industry, in proving to herself that the grapes are sour.
I had just wrote this, my dear, when I heard my papa’s voice—
“Where are you, miss? What’s come to the girl?”
“Here, dear sir; here to serve you,” I cried, and ran to meet him.
“Why, miss,” says Mr Freyne, “here’s the rival prophets both coming up to the house at once. I must have you sit by with your sewing, as meek as if you had never passed a saucy remark on your betters in your life, and take down their doleful prophecies, so as we may laugh at ’em a year hence.”
My Amelia knows one of these prophets: ’tis good Captain Colquhoun. The other is a young gentleman of the name of Dash, one of the Company’s writers here, the son of an old friend of my papa’s, and commended to his favourable notice by his father. Mr Dash is one of those persons who feel themselves competent to direct the whole œconomy of any business in which they are interested, and who, since it han’t pleased Providence to place them in authority, bear a grudge against such as occupy the situation they would fain fill.
“So you see, sir,” says Captain Colquhoun to my papa, when the gentlemen were seated, “I was right in telling you the Soubah was dead.”
(So he is, Amelia. The news was confirmed on Monday, when I wrote you last, but my head was so full of other things that I forgot it.)
“If you’d be so obliging as to say who’s to succeed him, it might profit us not a little at this moment, sir,” says Mr Freyne.
“Since the Presidency is leaning towards the side of Gosseta Begum, I would lay my money on the Chuta Nabob,” says Mr Dash.
“The Presidency,” said the Captain, “is doing its best to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, and that ends in destruction.”
“Sure, Captain,” said my papa, “you wouldn’t have the Council adopt precipitately either one side or t’other?”
“Sir, they have had time enough to make up their minds, and all they have decided is that while they hope the winner will be the Begum, they fear ’twill be Surajah Dowlah. If they had sufficient courage to support their desires, they might turn the scale in the lady’s favour, or possessing a little enterprise, they might bind the Nabob securely to their side; but they’ll do neither.”
“But, Captain,” said Mr Dash, “you would not have the Council embark on such enterprises as have brought us so much trouble in the Carnatic?”
“I would have them strong enough to support the right side if they chose, or to defend themselves if they remained neuter,” said the Captain. “At present they can’t make up their minds what to do in a situation in which it’s equally fatal to act too soon and to act too late.”
“Like myself, sir, you believe the Presidency will delay to support the young Nabob till too late, and then seek to curry favour with him?”
“Just so, sir; and the ladies and gentlemen here will be eating and drinking, and buying and selling, and marrying and giving in marriage, until the very day that the flood comes, and sweeps us all away.”
“Oh, fie, Captain! you’re alarming Miss. En’t you ashamed to have made the fairest cheek in Calcutta grow pale?”
“Miss is no more alarmed than you are, sir,” says Mr Freyne. “She has heard the Captain’s prophecies before.”
This turned the laugh against the Captain, who sat looking vastly stern and grim, and not a whit shaken in his predictions.
“The flood will sweep us all away,” he repeated, “and ’tis well it should. The luxury of our people is grown to an excessive pitch.”
“I vow, sir, you’re right,” said Mr Dash. “The establishments kept up by the President and most of the Council, and their manner of life, not to speak of the entertainments they give, are scandalous.”
“I was not pointing at any particular person, sir,” says the Captain, with a frown. “The evil is as marked in the case of the youngest writer, since too often he adds to his faults emulation of those above him.”
“But what would you have, Captain?” asked Mr Freyne. “Sure the Company can do no more than it does, sending out orders that the writers are to be deprived even of the indulgences most necessary in this climate. Rather than see the youngsters die for the want of these common things, we are forced to wink at their evasion of the orders, as when the writer at Madrass, who was forbid to be attended by a roundel-boy, changed the shape of his umbrella and called it a squaredel, and was waited on by his boy in peace. But the worst of this meddling on the Company’s part is that we can’t consistently enforce the salutary regulations against drinking, dicing, and debt, and such like, since we have suffered the infraction of the little foolish rules on which they insist so strongly.”
“Well,” said Mr Dash, “I would have the writers left alone. Some of them will die early, but the strongest will live on, and for them I would have the Company’s regulations strictly enforced, when they have reached the higher offices, that is. The election to these offices I would direct by the general vote, which should also have power to remove an office-holder in case of incapacity on his part.”
“Come,” says my papa, “Bengall will be the paradise of writers, indeed! though I can’t but pity the Members of Council when they shall hold their places at Tom Dash’s pleasure.”
“I’ll assure you, sir,” says Mr Dash, “the factory would be much better managed, and the Gentoos more friendly to us. At present both they and the Moors are nothing but so many spies on us for our enemies’ benefit. And talking of spies, what’s your opinion of the French gentleman from Chandernagore?”
“Young le Beaume? A very sprightly and agreeable person.”
“I am assured,” very mysteriously, “that he’s here as a spy on us. Mr Menotti tells me that he left Chandernagore secretly, having been imprisoned for taking a drubbing meekly from another officer, and that he looks to win his pardon by his reports as to our movements and intentions.”
“Then Mr Menotti has misinformed you, sir,” said Captain Colquhoun, contemptuously. “Mr le Beaume left Chandernagore because, having sent a challenge to a superior officer who he conceived had insulted him, he was accused of threatening his life, and put under arrest. He broke prison to come here, and he won’t return unless we deliver him up. I would far sooner believe Menotti to be a spy than him.”
“Sir! Mr Menotti is a gentleman of the highest respectability.”
“He’s nothing but an interloper, sir, and thirty years back would have been harried out of Calcutta. I’m much mistaken if all his wealth is the result of honest trading. He’s hand and glove with Omy Chund and the other Gentoos, visiting even at their private houses, which no other gentleman in the factory does, and the President finds him useful as a means of communicating with ’em. If he sells the secrets with which he has been injudiciously entrusted, we have a key to all that betraying of our plans to the Muxadavad Durbar which has gone on for years before poor le Beaume came here.”
“Come, Captain, don’t talk scandal,” says my papa, seeing my eyes fixed eagerly on Captain Colquhoun, for indeed I am perpetually on the watch for any chance of ridding myself of Mr Menotti. “We are as slanderous as any three old tabbies over their dish of tea, and Miss here is listening with all her ears.”
“And indeed, sir,” put in Mr Dash, “I can’t see that we have any reason to regret Mr Menotti’s friendliness with the Gentoos. Omy Chund and Govinderam Metre have both been hardly treated, and ’tis well they should be cultivated.”
“They are a pair of rascals, sir!” cried Mr Freyne, with a strong word, “and should have been turned out of the bounds when the Company’s service was rid of ’em.”
“Oh, come, sir, sure you must grant that the Zemindar used ’em with great hardness, worse even than the rest of the Indians he misrules.”
“No abuse of Mr Holwell here, sir, if you please.”
“But, sir, the place rings with tales of his injustice. There’s that affair of Rangeeboom Coberage, Raja Tillokchund of Burraduan’s[01] go-master—his entire possessions were sold for a debt of seven thousand rupees. That has inflamed the Gentoos, and ’tis not the only case.”
“When you have lived a little longer in Bengall, sir, you’ll understand that if King Solomon himself were judge in the Cutcherry Court, the losing side would infallibly declare he’d been bribed.”
“But ’tis well known, sir, that Mr Holwell increases the Company’s revenues by permitting persons of infamous character to settle here on payment of a price.”
“That’s Mr Holwell’s affair, sir, and if it be true, he must settle it with his conscience and the Company, which is for ever pressing him to raise more money. But I entirely disbelieve the report. Why, this very morning there was a dispute in the Council over some vagabond or other, whom Holwell desired to admit, while Drake and the other two were resolved to expel him. I suppose you’ll say that the Zemindar had took money from him?”
“Was you present at the Council, sir?” asked Captain Colquhoun.
“No, indeed, Captain. I had some notion of strolling in, but outside the door I heard the angry voices, and the peon told me what was going on, so I stayed away, knowing that poor Holwell and I could do nothing against Manningham and Frankland and the President. They won the day, of course, and as I came back to tiffing I saw a chubdar conducting the fellow, whoever he was, out of the place, with the usual rabble at his heels, pelting him with garbage and foul names.”
“Sir,” broke in the Captain, seemingly much moved, “that’s the fault I find in you, that having but one voice in the Council, you don’t exercise that one, but leave all things to be controlled by the Committee of Three.”
“You’re warm, Captain,” said my papa, “or you would scarce set to chide me in the presence of these young persons.”
“I ask your pardon, sir, but excuse you I can’t. Suppose (I say suppose, for I know no more of the matter than yourself) that this vagabond should be a hanger-on of Surajah Dowlah, how will you answer to the Company for your silence?”
“I shall answer with my life, sir, like all here, I suppose,” said Mr Freyne, smartly.
“And also with the lives of your wife and daughter, and all the women here, when the Nabob’s vengeance comes? Even your sole voice raised on Mr Holwell’s side might have brought the Three to reason, but you refused to give it.”
“Sure, Captain, you think a mighty great deal of Mr Holwell,” says Mr Dash.
“I think, sir, that he’s the one man of sense and honour in the Council, beyond a friend of mine that has the sense and honour, but won’t employ ’em, and one or two that are like him.”
“Well, sir, as I see the gentleman himself approaching, I won’t disturb your conversation with him,” said Mr Dash, rising and taking his departure in a very marked manner, though laughing.
“How has Holwell managed to disoblige the lad?” says my papa to Captain Colquhoun.
“I don’t know, sir, but I would judge he has made some effort to keep him in his place, for which he’ll pay dearly, I fear, if the young gentleman’s power ever equal his ill-will. Your servant, sir,” this to Mr Holwell, who came up looking more serious than ever.
“Good-day to you, gentlemen. Madam, your humble servant. I fear, Captain, that your prophecies are in a fair way to be fulfilled.”
“Hey-day!” cries Mr Freyne, “another prophet! Come, sir, what’s to do now?”
“You saw a Gentoo fellow drove out of the town this morning?”
“Questionless, sir; as villainous a countenance as I ever beheld.”
“Have either of you ever heard of Narransing,[02] gentlemen?”
“Narransing?” said the Captain, musing; “I seem to myself to know the name. Not Rajaram’s brother?”
“You’re right, sir. The brother of Ramramsing Hircara, the chief of the Chuta Nabob’s spies, was expelled from our bounds this morning with all possible ignominy.”
“If you’re surprised, sir, I’m not,” says the Captain.
“Tell us how it happened, sir,” said Mr Freyne.
“Last night between eight and nine,” says Mr Holwell, “I was surprised by a visit from Omy Chund, bringing with him another Gentoo, whom he presented to me as Narransing, saying that he entered the town in a European dress, and brought a letter from the Nabob. I received the fellow with the civility due to Rajaram’s brother, but refused to look at his perwannah, which was wrote by Huckembeg, the Nabob’s duan, as the President would be in town in the morning. The purport of the piece was to demand the delivery of Kissendasseat, with his women and treasure, on the ground that Radjbullob, his father, when ordered to produce his accounts, said that Kissendass had taken ’em away with him. In the morning I laid the matter before Mr President, with whom were Messieurs Manningham and Frankland, who regarded the affair as an insolent attempt to terrify us, since advices from all quarters report that Gosseta Begum is certain of success. Narransing’s coming in disguise, and his sneaking into the place under cover of night, seemed to support the notion, even if they did not show that he wasn’t an accredited messenger at all, and the Council would not choose to wait and see how things would turn out. Mr Manningham seemed to be of my way of thinking at first, but he soon agreed with his partner and Mr Drake, and they sent to turn Narransing out of the place. The servants, going beyond their orders, drove him out of the factory, and even off the shore, with menaces and insolence, which seemed somewhat to alarm the Council when they heard it, for they writ at once to Cossimbuzar to bid Mr Watts make things right with the Nabob.”
“Make things right!” says the Captain.
“And more,” said Mr Holwell, “this morning, when I was about to punish the Jemmautdar[03] of the chokey,[04] where the fellow landed, for admitting a person in a European habit unknown to me, he said that the only European he admitted last night was not Narransing at all, but might be any of the gentlemen here. Narransing wore the dress of a common pycar,[05] but when they would have opposed his landing, Omy Chund’s servants came to say that he was a relation of their master’s, and must be let in. What do you make of this?”
“Why, that there’s an extraordinary great mystery somewhere, sir,” says my papa. “We’ll talk of this in the garden, gentlemen, if you please, for there’s one or two matters on which the Captain and I would fain have Mr Holwell’s opinion. Mind you’re not late in dressing for the Masquerade, miss.”
Oh, this Masquerade! Was ever any one in a frame of mind less suited to such a gathering, Amelia? I had hoped it might be put off by reason of the old Soubah’s death, but it seems that since Mr Drake has heard nothing in an official manner he can’t take notice of it; and though I have begged and prayed my papa to permit me to stay at home, he won’t hear of it, but insists on my attending him and Mrs Freyne to the Play-house.
April ye 16th.
More troubles and mysteries and perplexities, Amelia! Sure my dear Miss Turnor will begin to think that her Sylvia’s presence is as disastrous as that of Helen of Troy to the place she honours with her residence. But to my tale. Yesterday evening I went to my chamber early to dress for the masquerade, and turned sick at heart to look at the dress which Marianna had laid out upon the cott. (Did I tell you that a bed here is always called a cott?) It was made after the pattern of that worn by Miss Byron as an Arcadian princess, for Miss Hamlin and I had agreed to wear dresses of a more modern and distinctive sort than the usual nuns and shepherdesses one hears of every day. She chose, therefore, the dress worn by Lady Bella in the ‘Female Quixote,’ as the Princess Julia, daughter of Augustus Cæsar, and I that of the charming Harriet, although my pleasure in it was sadly damped by the rumour that reached me that Mr Menotti was having a vastly fine suit made for himself as Sir Charles Grandison. Imagine it, my dear! the desecration of so noble a character by this vile wretch’s impersonating it. Well, as I stood looking at my gown, I heard a palanqueen arrive, and presently in came Mrs Hurstwood, Miss Hamlin that was, in her ordinary clothes, and frightfully disturbed. The tailor that was making her gown for the evening had run off with the stuff, tempted, as is supposed, by the richness of the blue and silver brocade, and there was no time to make another. Indeed, the poor young lady was in a terrible state, fit to rave. As she sat and bewailed her loss, a thought came to me.
“Oh, dearest miss—Charlotte, I should say—” I cried, “wear my dress, I entreat you, and go in my place.”
“And what would Miss Freyne’s papa say to that?” said she.
“Questionless, he would be sadly displeased, for I have begged of him in vain to permit me to stay at home. But oh, miss, I have such a terror of masquerades”—“Drawn from Mr Richardson,” she put in—“and such a diversion is so ill-suited to my present thoughts and situation, and I am so apprehensive of being spoken to by my persecutor, and perhaps insulted, that if you would persuade Mr Freyne to excuse me, I should be for ever grateful to you. And I know that my papa has a vastly high esteem for Mrs Hurstwood.”
“And pray, miss,” says she, “will you prefer Calcutta to say you remain at home out of jealousy for my marriage, or grief for Mr Fraser’s departure, or sympathy with Lieutenant Bentinck?”
“You terrify me!” I cried. “Sure my papa was only kind in commanding me to appear, if this be the alternative. But,” for a sudden thought seized me, “I can’t wear this dress. I should feel like a tricked-out skeleton. Pray, miss, oblige me by putting it on. You may be taken for me, but I know you’ll hold your own with the boldest wretches in Calcutta”—“I thank you, miss,” said she.—“As for me, I’ll endeavour to strengthen and calm my mind by wearing the dress of the incomparable Clarissa, who was greater in her humiliation than in her happiest days. My white damask nightgown and satin petticoat, with a morning cap, and my hair in a dégagé style, will answer all purposes, and should save me from recognition.”
“I vow you’re mistaken, if you think an undress and the absence of a hoop will disguise the finest shape in Calcutta,” says my Charlotte; “but the notion of deceiving the fellows is agreeable enough. Well, miss, if you’re really in earnest, I’ll oblige you by wearing your dress.”
“I can never be grateful enough to my dear Mrs Hurstwood,” I said, and calling in Marianna, we soon had Charlotte dressed in the blue satin waistcoat and petticoat, laced and fringed with silver, the white silk scarf and the fantastical cap, so well known to all Mr Richardson’s readers. While I was hurrying into my own gown, my stepmother looked in at the door.
“What, miss! exchanging dresses?” she cried.
“A mishap has come to Mrs Hurstwood’s gown, madam,” said I, “and she is so good as to wear mine, which I have took a dislike to.”
“Oh, very well,” said Mrs Freyne. “And you are the divine Clarissa in the Sponging-house, I see. O’ my conscience, miss, I wonder at your preference! But your papa and I can’t wait for you. You’ll follow with Mrs Hurstwood, I suppose?”
“I expect my spouse every moment, madam,” says Charlotte, “and I’ll assure you we’ll both have an eye to Miss’s safety.”
Mrs Freyne went away, and I finished dressing in much better spirits. But what was my vexation when I arrived at the Play-house with the Hurstwoods to perceive that my naughty, unkind stepmother must have told Mr Menotti of my sudden change of intention, for he came stumping towards me as soon as I alighted from my palanqueen, in a greatcoat with a cape, the collar turned up and buttoned round his chin, a pair of coarse stockens drawn over his own, and an old tie-wig, the very image of the abandoned Lovelace when he forced himself in this disguise upon Clarissa’s retirements at Hampstead. I could have wept, Amelia. The sole consolation that offered itself to me (and it did give me a sensible pleasure, I’ll promise you) was the thought of the inconvenience the wretch must be suffering from the heat, and the mortification it must have cost him to lay aside his fine Grandison dress. There was no escaping him, for he was the first to observe our arrival, and I was forced to give him my hand, and to endure his talk, which was as free as that of Lovelace, but wanted the wit, until I hated him worse than ever, if that were possible, and seized the chance of our becoming entangled in a crowd of masques to rid myself of his company.
Anxious only to be free from the company of my too importunate Lovelace, I lent a ready ear to a masque who approached me in the habit of a French religious person, and whom I knew, by his air of gallantry, to be Mons. le Beaume. With him was a gentleman most elegantly dressed in a coat of red cloth of silver, buttoned with diamonds, and very richly laced, with waistcoat and breeches of satin. There was large diamond buckles in his shoes, which had monstrous high red heels, and he wore a great forked periwig, all in the mode of fifty years back. I observed this person particularly, because a few minutes ago he had come and tapped Mr Menotti on the shoulder, desiring him, as I think, to present him to me. His address seemed to put my persecutor out of countenance in an extraordinary manner, but he refused very vehemently to grant the request, though the other continued to urge it even with menaces, as I judged by his gestures.
“Fairest Clarissa,” says Mr le Beaume, bowing with great ceremony, “here’s his Most Christian Majesty the late King Lewis of France, whom the report of your virtues has reached in the other world, and brought him back to earth to show his admiration of ’em.”
“Sure his Majesty’s admiration of virtue is well known, sir,” said I.
“Madam,” says the strange gentleman in French, which also Mr le Beaume and I had used, “in his day virtue had not dwelt upon earth in the person of the divine Clarissa. With the good fortune of her example to guide him——”
“If your Majesty desire the divine Clarissa to guide you in the dance,” says Mr le Beaume, “there’s no time to lose. You can exchange fine phrases out of the romances afterwards.”
My cavalier offered his hand immediately, which I accepted, anticipating an agreeable contest of wits in forcing him to discover himself, for, what with his masque and his periwig, I was quite unable to recognise him as any of the gentlemen of the place, while his voice (and he spoke French as I had not thought any of our gentlemen could speak it) was also strange to me. So well did he present his character that he even danced in the French style, which is at once more ceremonious and displays greater vivacity than ours, until my curiosity was piqued in the highest degree. But ’twas not until we were sitting in the inner varanda after the dance, and my partner was fanning me, as is the custom here, that I had any chance to converse with him. His discourse suited less well with his disguise than his dancing had done; for although he made me several genteel compliments in the true romantic style, he turned quickly to speak of the ordinary affairs of the place, and among them of the matter of Kissendasseat. But here I stopped him.
“Pray, sir,” I said, “don’t mention that person’s name to me. For weeks there was nothing talked of in Calcutta but Kissendass and his women, his goods and his sacks of treasure, until I was tired to death of him.”
“His refuging here is much talked of, then?” asked the disguised.
“Really, sir, you must know that as well as I.”
“Pardon me, madam; how should I know that the ladies condescended to weary themselves with the trifles that interest us poor men? Yet I deserve the rebuke, for en’t the lady in this case Miss Clarissa Harlowe?”
“Sure you single me out unduly, sir. The ladies of Calcutta can’t be indifferent to events that might prove to be of so much moment to ’em.”
“Then has the President’s treatment of the Nabob’s messenger given rise to apprehension among the fair sex, madam?”
“’Tis but little known as yet, sir, but it’s natural there should be some misgivings as to the new Soubah’s acceptance of it.”
“Poh, poh!” says he. “The President knows what he’s about, madam. The Nabob has exposed his weakness by his method of proceeding. Why should he send his emissary to steal into the place in disguise, if it en’t that he hoped to gain secretly from the friendship of the Presidency what he knows he can’t demand openly and by force?”
“It may be so, sir; but if it be, the insults offered to his servant will give him but an indifferent notion of that friendship.”
“You’re too apprehensive, madam. You may take my word for it that the Nabob can’t afford to resent these insults. He’s encompassed with enemies, and he knows the strength of the factory too well to dream of attacking it.”
“You’re vastly positive, sir; I hope you may be justified. What I find alarming in this affair is the suggestion that there may be some deep conspiracy behind it.”
“Conspiracy, ha, ha! Forgive me, madam, but I perceive that even the greatest of her sex en’t free from the fault of meeting misfortune half-way. Trust me, in a month or so this alarm will be forgot, and Clarissa will be swallowed up in preparations for making her Lovelace the happiest of men.”
“I vow I don’t understand you, sir.”
“What! don’t we all know that in this case the lover possesses the support of his mistress’s friends? Happiest of men, indeed! since with the mind and temper of Solmes, he’s earned the reward of Lovelace.”
“If you’re in the confidence of the person at whom you hint, sir, allow me to say that you’ll do him no service by these free remarks. Will you be so good as to hand me back to the ballroom?”
“Nay, then,” said this strange man, with great warmth, placing himself in my path as he spoke, “is the report true that has reached me, that this pretended Lovelace is but Solmes in disguise? Is it true that his suit, while favoured by her mamma, is distasteful to the amiable Clarissa herself? Speak, madam, and enrol Lewis as your defender until death.”
By this time I was heartily frightened, as you may suppose, and anxious only to rid myself of my new tormentor. “Sure you forget yourself, sir, in thus intruding into family matters. I thank Heaven that I have already friends sufficient to protect me, as well as a will that has served me tolerably hitherto.”
“Nay, madam,” he cried again, seizing my gown as I sought to slip past him, “you’re in a trap, believe me. Your mamma is leagued with this Solmes or Lovelace—whichever he be—and resolved on handing you over to him. You’ll perceive before long the truth of my words. If you should then be moved to accept of my assistance, a billet addressed to me in character, and sent to the house of a respectable female in the Great Buzar, whom all the Indian servants know by the name of the Mother of Cosmetiques, will find me without loss of time.”
I was incensed against the man for his bare-faced proposition, and tore my gown from his hold. “Sure, sir,” I said angrily, “you forget the character I have assumed in thus acting up to your own. Be assured there’s no help I would not accept sooner than that offered in such a fashion,” and I pushed past him, and ran along the varanda towards the door. Here I came upon two gentlemen, who had been watching the dancing, and had stepped out to breathe the air, and to my delight I recognised them as my papa and Captain Colquhoun. I seized Mr Freyne’s arm. “Oh, sir——!” I gasped, and burst into tears, and so clung to him, looking like a fool, I make no doubt.
“Can I be of any service to you, madam?” asked my papa.
“Is it possible, sir, that you don’t recognise Miss Freyne?” said Captain Colquhoun, with the stiffest air in the world.
“How could a man know any one in that masque?” cried Mr Freyne. “Take the absurd thing off, miss, and tell me what’s the matter.”
“The—the person with whom I was dancing, sir,” I sobbed.
“Well, and what of him, miss? Who is he?