Mrs. Lecount accepted the proposal. She was perfectly well aware that her escort had lost himself on purpose, but that discovery exercised no disturbing influence on the smooth amiability of her manner. Her day of reckoning with the captain had not come yet—she merely added the new item to her list, and availed herself of the camp-stool. Captain Wragge stretched himself in a romantic attitude at her feet, and the two determined enemies (grouped like two lovers in a picture) fell into as easy and pleasant a conversation as if they had been friends of twenty years’ standing.
“I know you, ma’am!” thought the captain, while Mrs. Lecount was talking to him. “You would like to catch me tripping in my ready-made science, and you wouldn’t object to drown me in the Professor’s Tank!”
“You villain
