His manner
toward her was the model of proper civility. He was a hundred times
more amiable and jocular with Fanny, whom he treated with the
half-familiar pleasantry of an elderly man for a child; petting her
with such delicacy as precluded displeasure on either her part or
mine. He pretended great dejection upon learning that her heart was
already engaged; and declared that his only consolation lay in the
fact that the happy possessor of the prize was myself: for which we
both liked him exceedingly. Toward Mrs. Faringfield, too, he used a
chivalrous gallantry as complimentary to her husband as to the lady.
Only between him and Margaret was there the distance of unvaried
formality.
And yet we ought to have seen how matters stood. For now Margaret,
though she had so little apparent cordiality for the captain, had
ceased to value the admiration of the other officers, and had
substituted a serene indifference for the animated interest she had
formerly shown toward the gaieties of the town. And the captain, too,
we learned, had the reputation of an inveterate conqueror of women;
yet he had exhibited a singular callousness to the charms of the
ladies of New York. He had been three months in the town, and his name
had not been coupled with that of any woman there. We might have
surmised from this a concealed preoccupation. And, moreover, there was
my first reading of his countenance, the night of the Morris ball;
this I had not forgotten, yet I ignored it, or else I shut my eyes to
my inevitable inferences, because I could see no propriety in any
possible interference from me.
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