Stefan flushed. He pronounced something--conclusively--in French. Then--"Don't ask me to apologize, Miss Elliston."
"I won't," reassuringly. "I felt rather like that, too. I wrote that I didn't expect anything as it was. Then I sat down and thought about the whole question of women in England and their chances. I had a hundred pounds and a few ornaments of Mother's. I love children, but I didn't want to be a governess. I wanted to stand alone in some place where my head wouldn't be pushed down every time I tried to raise it. I believed in America people wouldn't say so often, 'Why doesn't a nice girl like you get married?' so I came, and here I am. That's the whole story--a very humdrum one."
"Yes, here you are, thank God!" proclaimed Stefan devoutly. "What magnificent pluck, and how divine of you to tell me it all! You've saved me from suicide, almost. These people immolate me."
"How delightfully he exaggerates!" she thought.
"What thousands of things we can talk about," he went on in a burst of enthusiasm. "What a perfectly splendid time we are going to have!" He all but warbled.
"I hope so," she answered, smilingly, "but there goes the gong, and I'm ravenous."
"Dinner!" he cried scornfully; "suet pudding, all those horrible people--you want to leave this--?" He swept his arm over the glittering water.
"I don't, but I want my dinner," she maintained.
This checked his spirits for a moment; then enlightenment seemed to burst upon him.
"Glorious creature!" he apostrophized her. "She must be fed, or she would not glow with such divine health! That gong was for the first table, and I'm not in the least hungry. Nevertheless, we will eat, here and now."
She demurred, but he would have his way, demanding it in celebration of their meeting. He found the deck steward, tipped him, and exacted the immediate production of two dinners. He ensconced Miss Elliston in some one else's chair, conveniently placed, settled her with some one else's cushions, which he chose from the whole deck for their color--a clean blue--and covered her feet with the best rug he could find. She accepted his booty with only slight remonstrance, being too frankly engaged by his spirits to attempt the role of extinguisher. He settled himself beside her, and they lunched delightedly, like children, on chops and a rice pudding.