Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/270

 quainted is a phrase that, with your ladyship’s permission, shall be invested with a private meaning.”

“So it shall,” she says quite softly, and looking at me with enticing eyes.

Though it is not my part to brag of my person, I have lived too long not to know the value of a smart coat and a pair of eyes, and I will confess that her ardent glances stung me to the midriff; more particularly as she next turned towards His Majesty, and with a dainty gesture of her arm, addressed me thus—

“Maybe,” she says, “you can persuade your friend, Captain, not to obtrude himself upon us in this unseemly fashion.”

“Why,” says I promptly. “Now his duty is over, he may go to the Devil for me,” and I took a step or so towards Old Rowley.

He seemed a trifle disconcerted, for I reckon ’twas scarce the deportment he had expected in her ladyship; but this was only for a second, and then he bowed very gravely.

“I feared, Madam,” he said, shaking his head, “that this would be my reception, once