MATURIN


"Baffled!" he exclaimed, with a slight vexed laugh, as the boat
vanished from his sight. "By a woman, too! Who would have thought
it?"

Who would have thought it, indeed! Sir Philip Bruce-Errington,
Baronet, the wealthy and desirable parti for whom many match-making
mothers had stood knee-deep in the chilly though sparkling waters of
society, ardently plying rod and line with patient persistence,
vainly hoping to secure him as a husband for one of their highly
proper and passionless daughters,--he, the admired, long-sought-
after "eligible," was suddenly rebuffed, flouted--by whom? A stray
princess, or a peasant. He vaguely wondered, as he lit a cigar and
strolled up and down on the shore, meditating, with a puzzled,
almost annoyed expression on his handsome features. He was not
accustomed to slights of any kind, however trifling; his position
being commanding and enviable enough to attract flattery and
friendship from most people. He was the only son of a baronet as
renowned for eccentricity as for wealth. He had been the spoilt
darling of his mother; and now, both his parents being dead, he was
alone in the world, heir to his father's revenues, and entire master
of his own actions. And as part of the penalty he had to pay for
being rich and good-looking to boot, he was so much run after by
women that he found it hard to understand the haughty indifference
with which he had just been treated by one of the most fair, if not
the fairest of her sex. He was piqued, and his amour propre was
wounded.