Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/282

 "Certainly not," she said, laughing; "she is a nice little thing; and I shall decidedly interfere, if you begin that course of philandering you pursued at St. Mary's."

"My dear Helen, I do not know what is the feminine of the word philanderer—perhaps philanderess; and I assure you she philanderessed with me in the most innocent but decided manner. But I won't begin again till I feel sure of my own honourable intentions."

He, however, occasionally addressed an observation to the opposite side of the table, and during second course observed to Helen that Miss Douglas had a very pretty hand and arm; and by the time that dessert was on the table, said he had made the discovery that she had a good perception of a joke, and smiled intelligently. "I really think, Helen, I am falling in love! I do not mean in the usual mad, bustling way in which most people set about it; but falling in love very creditably for me. What do you think?"

"That you have not the remotest idea even how to set about it; you are much too worldly and too blasé to appreciate or to please such a good, simple-minded girl as that is; but as you are only in jest, it does not much signify."

Ernest laughed, but he was very much piqued with Helen's views of the subject; and in the evening he took some pains to make himself agreeable to Eliza. But he did not find her so disposed to be amused and interested as she had been at St. Mary's. Mrs. Douglas, with her usual acuteness, had observed all that had passed there, which she thought fully accounted for her daughter's changed spirits since—and before Eliza went to Eskdale, her mother had spoken to her seriously on the subject of Colonel Beaufort's attentions, and without exactly saying that Eliza had invited rather than encouraged them, had desired her upon no account to seek his society; and, above all, to recollect that he "was a regular London fine man, without any heart, and thinking of nothing but his own