“Don’t be angry, Jack.  What should we live on? I haven’t a penny, you can’t always pay your mess bill, and I am afraid an officer’s wife couldn’t go on the strength of the regiment, and take in washing.”

“I didn’t think you were so mercenary,” said he, looking into her liquid eyes, that were fast quenching the angry light in his.

“I suppose I must be,” said Bluebell, naively; “for I hate poverty so.  You know my father married—­just as you want to do—­a pretty girl without a dollar to her name.”

“You are pretty, my darling, and you know it,” said Jack, bitterly.

“I don’t know why people care for me if I am not, for I’m afraid there isn’t much in me; and at the age of seventeen one may at least lay claim to la beaute du diable.  Well, as I was going to say, my father married just as imprudently, and got disinherited for his pains.”

“No fear of that with me,” said Jack.  “I am number seven, and they have all good constitutions.  Destiny has decreed that I must live by my wits, without even providing me with any.”

“So you see,” continued she, “as we have neither money nor brains, it is no use thinking of it!”

“You are wise in your generation,” said Jack, darkly.  “You are pretty enough to get a rich husband any day; but whoever it is, for Heaven’s sake, don’t let it be Du Meresq!”

Bluebell’s fair brow contracted, and her dark lashes swept her cheek, as she said, in a low, pained voice,—­“No fear of that.”

“I trust not,” said Jack, severely, and quite unconvinced.  “You are but a child, Bluebell; and, though you won’t take me, I shall watch over you, and see that you do not throw yourself away; though if any good fellow wants you, I suppose I must grin and bear it.”

“Thanks, my stern guardian.  I hope you won’t die of old age in the mean time.  And now, do go, dear Jack.  I must paddle after the others.”

“Say good-bye first.  May I, Bluebell?  Only this once,”—­and, without waiting for consent, he imprinted a kiss, grave as an officiating priest’s to a new made bride.  Touched by his love and resignation she voluntarily returned it, and, turning away, encountered the two mischievous eyes of Miss Tremaine in the stern of her boat, which had glided up unobserved.

I suppose there is no dereliction from the Eleventh Commandment, in which people would more joyfully welcome an earthquake than being taken at a similar disadvantage.  No explanation or extenuating circumstances can be attempted in that deep confusion.

Lilla raised her eyes to heaven with a most edifying expression of pious horror, and shook her head disapprovingly.

“Jack,” muttered Bluebell, in a tone of concentrated anguish, “I shall die of it!”

Vavasour suppressed an expletive more forcible than parliamentary, and strode down to pull the boat in.

“Oh, here you are,” cried Cecil, innocent of the foregoing pantomime, for she was rowing, and had her back to them.  “Mr. Vavasour, where do you spring from?” She noted, as she spoke, his strange expression and Bluebell’s heightened colour with quickening curiosity and pleasure.