第161章

"Not with my leave. Why didn't you come and ask if you wanted to get yourselves married? Why didn't you tell me?""We were ashamed."

"What has become of Mr Houston, whom you loved so dearly?""Oh, papa!"

"And the Captain was so much attached to Ayala!""Oh, papa!"

"Get up, you stupid girl. Why is it that my children are so much more foolish than other people's? I don't suppose you care for the man in the least.""I do, I do. I love him with all my heart.""And as for him -- how can he care for you when it is but the other day he was in love with your cousin?""Oh, papa!"

"What he wants is my money, of course."

"He has got plenty of money, papa."

"I can understand him, fool as he is. There is something for him to get. He won't get it, but he might think it possible.

As for you, I cannot understand you at all. What do you expect?

It can't be for love of a hatchet-faced fellow like that, whom you had never seen a fortnight ago.""It is more than a month ago, papa."

"Frank Houston was, at any rate, a manly-looking fellow.""He was a scoundrel," said Gertrude, now standing up for the first time.

"A good-looking fellow was Frank Houston; that at least may be said for him," continued the father, determined to exasperate his daughter to the utmost. "I had half a mind to give way about him, because he was a manly, outspoken fellow, though he was such an idle dog. If you'd gone off with him, I could have understood it -- and perhaps forgiven it," he added.

"He was a scoundrel!" screamed Gertrude, remembering her ineffectual attempts to make her former lover perform this same journey.

"But this fellow! I cannot bring myself to believe that you really care for him.""He has a good income of his own, while Houston was little better than a beggar.""I'm glad of that," said Sir Thomas, "because there will be something for you to live upon. I can assure you that Captain Batsby will never get a shilling of my money. Now, you had better finish dressing yourself, and come down and eat your dinner with me if you've got any appetite. You will have to go back to Dover by the boat tonight.""May Ben dine with us?" asked Gertrude, timidly. "Ben may go to the d -- . At any rate he had better not show himself to me again," said Sir Thomas.

The lovers, however, did get an opportunity of exchanging a few words, during which it was settled between them that as the young lady must undoubtedly obey her father's behests, and return to Dover that night, it would be well for Captain Batsby to remain behind at Ostend. Indeed, he spoke of making a little tour as far as Brussels, in order that he might throw off the melancholy feelings which had been engendered. "You will come to me again, Ben," she said. Upon this he looked very grave. "You do not mean to say that after all this you will desert me?""He has insulted me so horribly!"

"What does that signify? Of course he is angry. If you could only hear how he has insulted me.""He says that you were in love with somebody else not a month since.""So were you, Ben, for the matter of that." He did, however, before they parted, make her a solemn promise that their engagement should remain an established fact, in spite both of father and mother.

Gertrude, who had now recovered the effects of her seasickness -- which, however, she would have to encounter again so very quickly -- contrived to eat a hearty dinner with her father.

There, however, arose a little trouble. How should she contrive to pack up the clothes which she had brought with her, and which had till lately been mixed with the Captain's garments? She did, however, at last succeed in persuading the chamber-maid to furnish her with a carpet-bag, with which in her custody she arrived safely on the following day at Merle Park.