The sense of constraint being thus banished by the only one whose presence had occasioned it, the party, after a few minutes low conversation between the lovers, sat down gaily to a meal--half-break fast, half-luncheon, at which the most conspicuous actor was the lately reprimanded ensign.
“Really, Mr. Ronayne, you must have met with a perfect chapter of adventures during your absence last night. You have devoured the last four fresh eggs, my cook says, there were in the house--three limbs of a prairie fowl, and nearly the half of a young bear ham. Do, pray, tell us where you have been to gain such an appetite? Indeed you must--I am dying to know.”
“My dear Mrs. Elmsley,” he replied, coloring, “where should I have been but in the Fort?”
“True! where SHOULD you have been, indeed; but this is not the point, my hungry gentleman. Where WERE you? If I was, I KNOW WHO,” she added, significantly, “I should have my suspicions, unless, indeed, you have already confessed within the few minutes you have been in the room.”
“Nay, do not imagine I have so much influence over the truant, as to compel him to the confessional,” said Maria Heywood. “I assure you I am quite as much in the dark as any one present.”
“Come, Mr. Ronayne, recount your adventures,” added Mrs. Headley. “Recollect you are not on parade now, or exactly before the sternest Court of Inquiry in the world, and should therefore, entertain no dread of punishment on your self-conviction.”
“Thus urged and encouraged,” said the ensign, during one of the short pauses of his knife and fork, which, in truth, he had handled as much to study what he should say, as to satisfy his hunger; “who could resist such pleading, were there really any thing to communicate; but I am quite at a loss to conceive why so general an opinion seems to prevail that I have been out of the Fort, and in quest of adventure. Why not rather ascribe my tardiness at parade to some less flattering cause--a head-ache--fatigue from night-watching--indolence, or even a little entetement, arising from the denial of a very imprudent request I made to Captain Headley last evening, to allow me the command of a detachment for a particular purpose. Pardon me, I have made quite a speech, but indeed you compel me.”