’But you have the sense to see your duties, Evan.  You have an excellent sense, in the main.  No one would dream—­to see you.  You did not, I must say, you did not make enough of your gallantry.  A Portuguese who had saved a man’s life, Evan, would he have been so boorish?  You behaved as if it was a matter of course that you should go overboard after anybody, in your clothes, on a dark night.  So, then, the Jocelyns took it.  I barely heard one compliment to you.  And Rose—­what an effect it should have had on her!  But, owing to your manner, I do believe the girl thinks it nothing but your ordinary business to go overboard after anybody, in your clothes, on a dark night.  ’Pon my honour, I believe she expects to see you always dripping!’ The Countess uttered a burst of hysterical humour.  ’So you miss your credit.  That inebriated sailor should really have been gold to you.  Be not so young and thoughtless.’

The Countess then proceeded to tell him how foolishly he had let slip his great opportunity.  A Portuguese would have fixed the young lady long before.  By tender moonlight, in captivating language, beneath the umbrageous orange-groves, a Portuguese would have accurately calculated the effect of the perfume of the blossom on her sensitive nostrils, and know the exact moment when to kneel, and declare his passion sonorously.

‘Yes,’ said Evan, ‘one of them did.  She told me.’

‘She told you?  And you—­what did you do?’

‘Laughed at him with her, to be sure.’

’Laughed at him!  She told you, and you helped her to laugh at love!  Have you no perceptions?  Why did she tell you?’

‘Because she thought him such a fool, I suppose.’

‘You never will know a woman,’ said the Countess, with contempt.

Much of his worldly sister at a time was more than Evan could bear.  Accustomed to the symptoms of restiveness, she finished her discourse, enjoyed a quiet parade up and down under the gaze of the lieutenant, and could find leisure to note whether she at all struck the inferior seamen, even while her mind was absorbed by the multiform troubles and anxieties for which she took such innocent indemnification.

The appearance of the Hon. Melville Jocelyn on deck, and without his wife, recalled her to business.  It is a peculiarity of female diplomatists that they fear none save their own sex.  Men they regard as their natural prey:  in women they see rival hunters using their own weapons.  The Countess smiled a slowly-kindling smile up to him, set her brother adrift, and delicately linked herself to Evan’s benefactor.

‘I have been thinking,’ she said, ’knowing your kind and most considerate attentions, that we may compromise you in England.’

He at once assured her he hoped not, he thought not at all.

‘The idea is due to my brother,’ she went on; ’for I—­women know so little!—­and most guiltlessly should we have done so.  My brother perhaps does not think of us foremost; but his argument I can distinguish.  I can see, that were you openly to plead Silva’s cause, you might bring yourself into odium, Mr. Jocelyn; and heaven knows I would not that!  May I then ask, that in England we may be simply upon the same footing of private friendship?’