In the salon of Canon Fournier at Bayeux, Bessie Fairfax had disconcerted this fine gentleman, but now the tables were turned, and on board the yacht he often disconcerted her—­not of malice prepense, but for want of due consideration.  No doubt she was a little unformed, ignorant girl, but her intuitive perceptions were quick, and she knew when she was depreciated and misunderstood.  On a certain afternoon he read her some beautiful poetry under the awning, and was interested to know whether she had any taste for poetry.  Bessie confessed that at school she had read only Racine, and felt shy of saying what she used to read at home, and he dropped the conversation.  He drew the conclusion that she did not care for literature.  At their first meeting it had seemed as if they might become cordial friends, but she soon grew diffident of this much-employed stranger, who always had the ill-luck to discover to her some deficiency in her education.  The effect was that by the time the yacht anchored off Ryde, she had lost her ease in his society, and had become as shy as he was capricious, for she thought him a most capricious and uncertain person in temper and demeanor.

Yet it was not caprice that influenced his behavior.  He was quite unconscious of the variableness that taxed her how to meet it.  He approved of Bessie:  he admired her—­face, figure, air, voice, manner.  He judged that she would probably mature into a quiet and loving woman of no very pronounced character, and there was a direct purpose in his mind to cultivate her affection and to make her his wife.  He thought her a nice girl, sweet and sensible, but she did not enchant him.  Perhaps he was under other magic—­under other magic, but not spell-bound beyond his strength to break the charm.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh was a man of genius and of soaring ambition—­well-born, well-nurtured, but as the younger son of a younger son absolutely without patrimony.  At his school and his university he had won his way through a course of honors, and he would disappoint all who knew him if he did not revive the traditions of his name and go onto achieve place, power, and fame.  To enter Parliament was necessary for success in the career he desired to run, and the first step towards Parliament for a poor young man was a prudent marriage into a family of long standing, wide connection, and large influence in their county—­so competent authorities assured him—­and all these qualifications had the Fairfaxes of Kirkham, with a young heiress sufficiently eligible, besides, to dispose of.  The heads on each side had spoken again, and in almost royal fashion had laid the lines for an alliance between their houses.  When Mr. Cecil Burleigh took Caen in his road to Paris, it was with the distinct understanding that if Elizabeth Fairfax pleased him and he succeeded in pleasing her, a marriage between them would crown the hopes of both their families.