She absolutely electrified Captain Wragge.

He forgot his politeness, he forgot his long words.

The essential spirit of the man's whole vagabond life burst out of him irresistibly in his first exclamation.

"Who the devil would have thought it?
She _can_ act, after all!" The instant the words escaped his lips he recovered himself, and glided off into his ordinary colloquial channels.

Magdalen stopped him in the middle of his first compliment.