“We are going to San Remo, as I told you,” she said. “I am waiting for my father. We are going to look for a piano. Frances is not musical, so there is no piano in the house. You must come too, and give your advice. Oh, are you ready, papa? Captain Gaunt, who does not know San Remo, and who does know music, is coming with us to give us his advice.” The young soldier stammered forth that to go to San Remo was the thing he most desired in the world. “But I don’t think my advice will be good for much,” he said, conscientiously. “I do a little on the violin; but as for pretending to be a judge of a piano----” “Come; we are all ready,” said Constance, leading the way. Waring had to let the young fellow precede him, to see him get into the carriage without any articulate murmur. As a matter of fact, a sort of stupor seized the father, altogether unaccustomed to be the victim of accidents. Frances might have lived by his side till she was fifty before she would have thought of inviting a stranger to be of their party--a stranger, a young man, which was a class of being with which Waring had little patience, a young soldier, proverbially frivolous, and occupied with foolish matters. Young Gaunt respectfully left to his senior the place beside Constance; but he placed himself opposite to her, and kept his eyes upon her with a devout attention, which Waring would have thought ridiculous had he not been irritated by it. The young fellow was a great deal too much absorbed to contribute much to the amusement of the party; and it irritated Waring beyond measure to see his eyes gleam from under his eyebrows, opening wider with delight, half closing with laughter, the ends of his moustache going up to his ears. Waring, an impartial spectator, was not so much impressed by his daughter’s wit. He thought he had heard a great deal of the same before, or even better, surely better, for he could recollect that he had in his day been charmed by a similar treatment, which must have been much lighter in touch, much less commonplace in subject, because--he was charmed. Thus we argue in our generations. In the meantime, young Gaunt, though he had not been without some experience, looked at Constance from under his brows, and listened as if to the utterances of the gods. If only they could have had it all to themselves; if only the old father had been out of the way!