“Good night; sir,” said Herbert, adding, “I will get information from the Horse Guards; as for the people knowing it about here, you’re not living much in society—­”

“It’s not other people’s feelings, it’s my own,” Van Diemen silenced him.  “I feel it, if it’s in the wind; ever since Mart Tinman spoke the thing out, I’ve felt on my skin cold and hot.”

He flourished his lighted candle and went to bed, manifestly solaced by the idea that he was the victim of his own feelings.

Herbert could not sleep.  Annette’s monstrous choice of Tinman in preference to himself constantly assailed and shook his understanding.  There was the “squarish jaw” mentioned by her father to think of.  It filled him with a vague apprehension, but he was unable to imagine that a young girl, and an English girl, and an enthusiastic young English girl, could be devoid of sentiment; and presuming her to have it, as one must, there was no fear, that she would persist in her loathsome choice when she knew her father was against it.

CHAPTER IX

Annette did not shun him next morning.  She did not shun the subject, either.  But she had been exact in arranging that she should not be more than a few minutes downstairs before her father.  Herbert found, that compared with her, girls of sentiment are commonplace indeed.  She had conceived an insane idea of nobility in Tinman that blinded her to his face, figure, and character—­his manners, likewise.  He had forgiven a blow!

Silly as the delusion might be, it clothed her in whimsical attractiveness.

It was a beauty in her to dwell so firmly upon moral quality.  Overthrown and stunned as he was, and reduced to helplessness by her brief and positive replies, Herbert was obliged to admire the singular young lady, who spoke, without much shyness, of her incongruous, destined mate though his admiration had an edge cutting like irony.  While in the turn for candour, she ought to have told him, that previous to her decision she had weighed the case of the diverse claims of himself and Tinman, and resolved them according to her predilection for the peaceful residence of her father and herself in England.  This she had done a little regretfully, because of the natural sympathy of the young girl for the younger man.  But the younger man had seemed to her seriously-straightforward mind too light and airy in his wooing, like one of her waltzing officers—­very well so long as she stepped the measure with him, and not forcible enough to take her off her feet.  He had changed, and now that he had become persuasive, she feared he would disturb the serenity with which she desired and strove to contemplate her decision.  Tinman’s magnanimity was present in her imagination to sustain her, though she was aware that Mrs. Cavely had surprised her will, and caused it to surrender unconsulted by her wiser intelligence.