If Noel Vanstone had obeyed Mrs. Lecount’s injunctions, and had kept her little morsel of note-paper folded in his pocket until the time came to use it, Captain Wragge’s designedly blunt appeal might not have found him unprepared with an answer.  But curiosity had got the better of him; he had opened the note at night, and again in the morning; it had seriously perplexed and startled him; and it had left his mind far too disturbed to allow him the possession of his ordinary resources.  He hesitated; and his answer, when he succeeded in making it, began with a prevarication.

Captain Wragge stopped him before he had got beyond his first sentence.

“Pardon me, sir,” said the captain, in his loftiest manner.  “If you have secrets to keep, you have only to say so, and I have done.  I intrude on no man’s secrets.  At the same time, Mr. Vanstone, you must allow me to recall to your memory that I met you yesterday without any reserves on my side.  I admitted you to my frankest and fullest confidence, sir—­and, highly as I prize the advantages of your society, I can’t consent to cultivate your friendship on any other than equal terms.”  He threw open his respectable frock-coat and surveyed his visitor with a manly and virtuous severity.

“I mean no offense!” cried Noel Vanstone, piteously.  “Why do you interrupt me, Mr. Bygrave?  Why don’t you let me explain?  I mean no offense.”

“No offense is taken, sir,” said the captain.  “You have a perfect right to the exercise of your own discretion.  I am not offended—­I only claim for myself the same privilege which I accord to you.”  He rose with great dignity and rang the bell.  “Tell Miss Bygrave,” he said to the servant, “that our walk this morning is put off until another opportunity, and that I won’t trouble her to come downstairs.”

This strong proceeding had the desired effect.  Noel Vanstone vehemently pleaded for a moment’s private conversation before the message was delivered.  Captain Wragge’s severity partially relaxed.  He sent the servant downstairs again, and, resuming his chair, waited confidently for results.  In calculating the facilities for practicing on his visitor’s weakness, he had one great superiority over Mrs. Lecount.  His judgment was not warped by latent female jealousies, and he avoided the error into which the housekeeper had fallen, self-deluded—­the error of underrating the impression on Noel Vanstone that Magdalen had produced.  One of the forces in this world which no middle-aged woman is capable of estimating at its full value, when it acts against her, is the force of beauty in a woman younger than herself.

“You are so hasty, Mr. Bygrave—­you won’t give me time—­you won’t wait and hear what I have to say!” cried Noel Vanstone, piteously, when the servant had closed the parlor door.

“My family failing, sir—­the blood of the Bygraves.  Accept my excuses.  We are alone, as you wished; pray proceed.”