At this juncture it occurred suddenly to me that I was playing the part
of a listener. (But may not much be forgiven a man who has heard himself
called "a puppy"?) So I moved away, leaving the fair Florence to her
blushes and her happiness, unshared by any but her friend. Between my
astonishment at Fane and my indignation at Mary, I was fairly
bewildered. Fane actually had proposed! _He_, the Honorable Drummond
Fane, who had always declaimed against matrimony--who had been
proof-hardened against half the best matches in the country--that
desperate flirt who we thought would never fall in love, to have tumbled
in headlong like this!

Well, there was some satisfaction, I would chaff him delightfully about
it; and I was really glad, for if Florence had given her heart to Fane,
she was not the sort of girl to forget, nor he the sort of man to be
forgotten, in a hurry. But in what an awfully foolish light I must have
appeared to Mary Aspeden! There was one thing, she would never know I
had overheard her. I would get leave, and go off somewhere--I would
marry the first pretty girl I met with--she should _not_ think I cared
for _her_. No, I would go on flirting as if nothing had happened, and
then announce, in a natural manner, that I was going into the Highlands,
and then _she_ would be the one to feel small, as she had made so _very_
sure of my proposal. And yet, if I went away, that was the thing to
please her. _Hang_ it! I did not know _what_ to do! My vanity was most
considerably touched, though my heart was not; but after cooling down a
little, I saw how foolishly I should look if I behaved otherwise than
quietly and naturally, and that after all _that_ would be the best way
to make Mary reverse her judgment.

So, when I met her again, which was not until we were going to return, I
offered her my arm to the boat where Fane and his _belle fiancee_ were
sitting, looking most absurdly happy; and the idea of my adamantine
friend being actually caught seemed so ridiculous, that it almost
restored me to my good humor, which, sooth to say, the appellation of
"puppy" had somewhat disturbed.

And so the moon rose and shed her silver light over the young lady who
had sentimentalized upon her, and a romantic cornet produced a
concertina, and sent forth dulcet strains into the evening air, and
Florence and her captain talked away in whispers, and Mary Aspeden sat
with tears in her eyes, thinking, I suppose, of "Cyril" and I mus