His Grace of Beaumanoir listened with an unmoved countenance.
“Yes,” he said, “to marry a duke might—probably would—be an unmitigated evil. I will help you to avoid it with pleasure. Let us walk by all means, Miss Sherman, if you don’t mind my awkward limp.”
So they joined the procession of promenaders, and there and then cemented a friendship which ripened quickly, as friendships between the opposite sexes do at sea. The haughty salesladies of the dry-goods store had not deigned to notice the counting-house drudge, and Leonie’s piquant beauty made instant captive of one who had been deprived of the society of women for over a year. She had all the frank camaraderie of the well-bred American, and her eager anticipations of the good time she was to have in Europe were infectious. In her company Beaumanoir was able to forget the dark shadow hanging over him, and to give himself up to the enjoyment of the hour. He began by being deeply grateful to her for taking him out of himself; and gratitude to a charming girl with a ravishing figure and a complexion of tinted ivory is like to have its heels trod by a warmer sentiment.
[25]
