One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
she had to say within herself many times, ‘I shall see Captain
Dartrey to-morrow,’ for a recovery and a nerving. And with
her thought of him, her tooth was at her underlip, she
struggled abashed, in hesitation over men’s views of her sex,
and how to bring a frank mind to meet him; to be sure of his
not at heart despising; until his character swam defined and
bright across her scope. ‘He is good to women.’ Fragments
of conversation, principally her father’s, had pictured Captain
Dartrey to her most manfully tolerant toward a frivolous
wife.
He came early in the morning, instantly after breakfast.
Not two minutes had passed before she was at home with
him. His words, his looks, revived her spirit of romance, gave
her the very landscapes, and new ones. Yes, he was her hero.
But his manner made him also an adored big brother, stamped
splendid by the perils of life. He sat square, as if alert to rise,
with an elbow on a knee, and the readiest turn of head to
speakers, the promptest of answers, eyes that were a brighter
accent to the mouth, so vividly did look accompany tone.
He rallied her, chatted and laughed; pleased the ladies by
laughing at Colney Durance, and inspired her with happiness
when he spoke of England:—that ‘One has to be in
exile awhile, to see the place she takes.’
‘Oh, Captain Dartrey, I do like to hear you say so,’ she
cried; his voice was reassuring also in other directions: it rang
of true man.
He volunteered, however, a sad admission, that England
had certainly lost something of the great nation’s proper conception
of Force: the meaning of it, virtue of it, and need for
it. ‘She bleats for a lesson, and will get her lesson.’
But if we have Captain Dartrey, we shall come through! So
said the sparkle of Nesta’s eyes.
‘She is very like her father,’ he said to the ladies.
‘We think so,’ they remarked.
‘There’s the mother too,’ said he; and Nesta saw that the
ladies shadowed.
They retired. Then she begged him to ‘tell her of her own
dear mother.’ The news gave comfort, except for the suspicion,
that the dear mother was being worn by her entertaining
so largely. ‘Papa is to blame,’ said Nesta.
‘A momentary strain. Your father has an idea of Parliament;
one of the London Boroughs.’
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