Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/272

 puzzling my brains to know what she was at. Old Rowley directed a quizzical look on us, and crossed his legs calmly. I make no doubt but he was diverting himself hugely, but so was I, for the matter of that, and the more so that I was resolute to turn the tables upon him. So,

“Look on him!” says I, going off again. “A muck-rake like that, as ought, from his investiture, to be a godly sanctimonious saint—to think of him philandering in the courts of Love!”

“Nay,” says Madam, ironically, “you must not be too hard on him. He is as God made him.”

“May He make no such other!” I exclaimed.

“Amen!” says she, with a vicious snap of her teeth.

Suddenly she bent forward to me, where I was seated and put her white hand gently on my shoulder.

“Captain,” she whispered in a cooing voice, “I will be plain with you. This man hath outlasted my endurance, and that’s the fact.