THE SILVER CORD.
BY SHIRLEY BROOKS.
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CHAPTER IX.
The boat from Folkstone to Boulogne was making excellent progress, the water was what people choose to call “glass,” and even the foreigners who were returning from insulation, and who, in spite of the glorious weather, wrapped and shawled themselves, and lay at full length, scowling at the sea as an ally of perfidious Albion, could not manage to get into their faces that curious hue of mottled whitey-brown paper, which is usually discernible on the alien countenance when the alien is on the ocean. There was scarcely a tolerable excuse for the kind tremors and slight faintnesses of the pretty bride, away for her honey month, and affectionately desirous to afford her Algernon the happiness of paying her all the petits soins of a voyage. The day was as beautiful on La Manche as at Lipthwaite.
Mrs. Lygon was sitting as far apart as possible from other passengers, but not in that part of the vessel where her place would naturally be. Plainly dressed, and veiled, she occupied a camp-stool “forward,” among the humbler class of passengers. She sat by the side of the vessel, and held a book, less for reading than as an assistance in repelling any well-meant attentions from good-natured women, who, happy in their holiday with their families, pitied her supposed loneliness, and any impertinence from young shopmen and the like, who, “cutting over to Boolone for a lark,” might desire to commence it by no end of a flirtation with a deuced pretty-looking Party who was sitting solus all alone by herself, until your humble took compassion on her. A little knot of smokers occasionally lounged near her, and chatted, but it is needless to say that no smile at their fun encouraged them to draw round her, and her look and manner were so unmistakeably those of a lady that she escaped all the small molestations which underbred Englishmen, less from viciousness than ill-breeding, have a habit of inflicting on a solitary female traveller. Laura was permitted to remain silent and thoughtful, until addressed by one who had a claim to be heard.
This was Ernest Adair, the Ernest Hardwick of the garden and the arbour at Mr. Vernon’s house in Lipthwaite.
He had been slightly, if at all aged or altered, to appearance, by the lapse of the years that had passed since that meeting with Mr. Vernon’s daughter. His step was as light and confident, his eye as glittering, his features as pale as ever, but perhaps on a closer regard it might have been seen that the lines were a little harder, and the face somewhat more resolved, though the smile was as ready as ever, and the voice as irritatingly pleasant. His dress, still dark, had a certain military compactness, which was not impaired by the effect of a loose white overcoat of the lightest material, and a stiff travelling cap, of a more elegant kind