It was a constant
wonder to him that such conditions had been able to produce a
woman like Florence Fenacre.
"You are the flower of ze prairie," he would say, "an atavism of
type, harking back a dozen generations to aristocratic
progenitors, having nothing in common with the Pathfinder your
Papa!"
"He wasn't a pathfinder," said Florence, "he was a whaler
captain."
But this to the count seemed only the more remarkable. He raised
the fabric of a fresh romance on the instant, especially (on
Florence telling him more about her forebears) when he began to
mix up the Pilgrim Fathers, the Revolutionary War, and the Alabama
in one brisk panorama of his ever dear "Far Vest"!
Florence's acquaintance with the comte de Souvary went back to
Majorca, where, in the course of one of those sudden blows, so
common on the Mediterranean, their respective yachts had fled for
shelter. His own was a large auxiliary schooner called the
Paquita, a lofty, showy vessel which he sailed himself with his
usual courage and audacity. He had the reputation of scaring his
unhappy guests--when any were bold enough to accept his
invitations--to within the proverbial inch of their lives; and
they usually changed "ze sensation" for the nearest mail-boat
home. Florence and he had struck up a warm friendship from the
start, and for the whole summer their vessels were inseparable,
sailing everywhere in company and anchoring side by side.
The count had a way of courtship peculiarly his own.
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