“Countess of Selkirk,” said Paul, advancing a step, “I call to see the Earl.  On business of urgent importance, I call.”

“The Earl is in Edinburgh,” uneasily responded the lady, again about to retire.

“Do you give me your honor as a lady that it is as you say?”

The lady looked at him in dubious resentment.

“Pardon, Madame, I would not lightly impugn a lady’s lightest word, but I surmised that, possibly, you might suspect the object of my call, in which case it would be the most excusable thing in the world for you to seek to shelter from my knowledge the presence of the Earl on the isle.”

“I do not dream what you mean by all this,” said the lady with a decided alarm, yet even in her panic courageously maintaining her dignity, as she retired, rather than retreated, nearer the door.

“Madame,” said Paul, hereupon waving his hand imploringly, and then tenderly playing with his bonnet with the golden band, while an expression poetically sad and sentimental stole over his tawny face; “it cannot be too poignantly lamented that, in the profession of arms, the officer of fine feelings and genuine sensibility should be sometimes necessitated to public actions which his own private heart cannot approve.  This hard case is mine.  The Earl, Madame, you say is absent.  I believe those words.  Far be it from my soul, enchantress, to ascribe a fault to syllables which have proceeded from so faultless a source.”

This probably he said in reference to the lady’s mouth, which was beautiful in the extreme.

He bowed very lowly, while the lady eyed him with conflicting and troubled emotions, but as yet all in darkness as to his ultimate meaning.  But her more immediate alarm had subsided, seeing now that the sailor-like extravagance of Paul’s homage was entirely unaccompanied with any touch of intentional disrespect.  Indeed, hyperbolical as were his phrases, his gestures and whole carriage were most heedfully deferential.

Paul continued:  “The Earl, Madame, being absent, and he being the sole object of my call, you cannot labor under the least apprehension, when I now inform you, that I have the honor of being an officer in the American Navy, who, having stopped at this isle to secure the person of the Earl of Selkirk as a hostage for the American cause, am, by your assurances, turned away from that intent; pleased, even in disappointment, since that disappointment has served to prolong my interview with the noble lady before me, as well as to leave her domestic tranquillity unimpaired.”

“Can you really speak true?” said the lady in undismayed wonderment.

“Madame, through your window you will catch a little peep of the American colonial ship-of-war, Banger, which I have the honor to command.  With my best respects to your lord, and sincere regrets at not finding him at home, permit me to salute your ladyship’s hand and withdraw.”