From any one else, the proud Catherine
would not have suffered such a liberty; to this, she replied only by a
graceful reverence, and, while the hero and paymaster of the _fete_
shook a rouleau of gold upon her counter, she said, hastily bending
towards Stradling:
'To-morrow!' accompanying this word with an expressive look and her
most gracious smile.
The enamored Stradling, always impassible, contented himself with
replying:
'It is well!'
The day following, the third, the important day, that which Catherine
already regarded as her day of betrothal, early in the morning, she
dressed herself in her best attire, not doubting the impatience of the
captain. Before noon, the latter entered the inn and went directly up
to the landlady.
She received him carelessly and coldly; she was nervous, she had not
had time for reflection; she did not know what the captain wished; if
he would let her alone for the present, by and by she would consider.
'Boy! a new pipe and some ale!' exclaimed Stradling, addressing a
waiter.
And, perfectly calm in appearance, he sauntered to his accustomed
place at the farther end of the bar-room. However, before leaving the
Royal Salmon, approaching Catherine, he said:
'Yesterday, by your voice and gesture you said, or almost said, yes;
we sailors know the signals; to-day it is no, or almost no.
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