"Now listen to me, Neddie Dibbs," she said, as she bounced the ball
lightly on her tennis-racket, "you are very precipitate. It's only four
weeks since you were court-martialed, and you escaped being reduced by
the very closest shave; and yet you come and make love to me, and want
me to marry you. You don't lack confidence, certainly."
Commander Dibbs, R.N. was hurt; but he did not become dramatic. He felt
the point of his torpedo-cut beard, and smiled up pluckily at her--she
was much taller than he.
"I know the thing went against me rather," he said, but it was all wrong,
I assure you. It's cheeky, of course, to come to you like this so soon
after, but for two years I've been looking forward up there in the China
Sea to meeting you again. You don't know what a beast of a station it
is--besides, I didn't think you'd believe the charge."
"The charge was that you had endangered the safety of one of her
Majesty's cruisers by trying to run through an unexplored opening
in the Barrier Reef. Was that it?"
"That was it."
"And you didn't endanger her?"
"Yes, I did, but not wilfully, of course, nor yet stupidly."
"I read the evidence, and, frankly, it looked like stupidity."
"I haven't been called stupid usually, have I"
"No. I've heard you called many things, but never that."
Every inch of his five-feet-five was pluck. He could take her shots
broadside, and laugh while he winced. "You've heard me called a good
many things not complimentary, I suppose, for I know I'm not much to look
at, and I've an edge to my tongue sometimes. What is the worst thing you
ever said of me?" he added a little bitterly.
"What I say to you now--though, by the way, I've never said it before--
that your self-confidence is appalling. Don't you know that I'm very
popular, that they say I'm clever, and that I'm a tall, good-looking
girl?"
She looked down at him, and said it with such a delightful naivete,
through which a tone of raillery ran, that it did not sound as it may
read. She knew her full value, but no one had ever accused her of
vanity--she was simply the most charming, outspoken girl in the biggest
city of Australia.
"Yes, I know all that," he replied with an honest laugh. "When you were
a little child,--according to your mother, and were told you were not
good, you said: 'No, I'm not good--I'm only beautiful.'"
Dibbs had a ready tongue, and nothing else he said at the moment could
have had so good an effect. She laughed softly and merrily. "You have
awkward little corners in your talk at times. I wonder they didn't
reduce you at the court-martial. You were rather keen with your words
once or twice there."
A faint flush ran over Dibbs's face, but he smiled through it, and didn't
give away an inch of self-possession. "If the board had been women, I'd
have been reduced right enough--women don't go by evidence, but by their
feelings; they don't know what justice really is, though by nature
they've some undisciplined generosity."
"There again you are foolish. I'm a woman. Now why do you say such
things to me, especially when--when you are aspiring! Properly, I ought
to punish you. But why did you say those sharp things at your trial?
They probably told against you."
"I said them because I felt them, and I hate flummery and thick-
headedness. I was as respectful as I could be; but there were things
about the trial I didn't like--irregular things, which the Admiral
himself, who knows his business, set right."
"I remember the Admiral said there were points about the case that he
couldn't quite understand, but that they could only go by such testimony
as they had."
"Exactly," he said sententiously.
She wheeled softly on him, and looked him full in the eyes. "What other
testimony was there to offer?"
"We are getting a long way from our starting-point," he answered
evasively. "We were talking of a more serious matter."
"But a matter with which this very thing has to do, Neddie Dibbs.
There's a mystery somewhere. I've asked Archie; but he won't say a word
about it, except that he doesn't think you were to blame."
"Your brother is a cautious fellow." Then, hurriedly: "He is quite right
to express no opinion as to any mystery. Least said soonest mended."
"You mean that it is proper not to discuss professional matters in
society?"
"That's it." A change had passed over Dibbs's face--it was slightly
paler, but his voice was genial and inconsequential.
"Come and sit down at the Point," she said.
They went to a cliff which ran out from one corner of the garden, and sat
down on a bench. Before them stretched the harbour, dotted with sails;
men-of-war lay at anchor, among them the little Ruby, Commander Dibbs's
cruiser. Pleasure-steamers went hurrying along to many shady harbours;
a tall-masted schooner rode grandly in between the Heads, balanced with
foam; and a beach beneath them shone like opal: it was a handsome sight.
For a time they were silent. At last he said: "I know I haven't much to
recommend me. I'm a little beggar--nothing to look at; I'm pretty poor;
I've had no influence to push me on; and just at the critical point in my
career--when I was expecting promotion--I get this set-back, and lose
your good opinion, which is more to me, though I say it bluntly like a
sailor, than the praise of all the Lords of the Admiralty, if it could
be got. You see, I always was ambitious; I was certain I'd be a captain;
I swore I'd be an admiral one day; and I fell in love with the best girl
in the world, and said I'd not give up thinking I would marry her until
and unless I saw her wearing another man's name--and I don't know that
I should even then."
"Now that sounds complicated--or wicked," she said, her face turned away
from him.
"Believe me, it is not complicated; and men marry widows sometimes."
"You are shocking," she said, turning on him with a flush to her cheek
and an angry glitter in her eye. "How dare you speak so cold-bloodedly
and thoughtlessly?"
"I am not cold-blooded or thoughtless, nor yet shocking. I only speak
what is in my mind with my usual crudeness. I know it sounds insolent of
me, but, after all, it is only being bold with the woman for whom--half-
disgraced, insignificant, but unquenchable fellow as I am--I'd do as much
as, and, maybe, dare more for than any one of the men who would marry her
if they could."
"I like ambitious men," she said relenting, and meditatively pushing
the grass with her tennis-racket; "but ambition isn't everything, is it?
There must be some kind of fulfilment to turn it into capital, as it
were. Don't let me hurt your feelings, but you haven't done a great
deal yet, have you?"
"No, I haven't. There must be occasion. The chance to do something big
may start up any time, however. You never can tell when things will come
your way. You've got to be ready, that's all."
"You are very confident."
"You'll call me a prig directly, perhaps, but I can't help that. I've
said things to you that I've never said to any one in the world, and I
don't regret saying them."
She looked at him earnestly. She had never been made love to in this
fashion. There was no sentimentalism in it, only straightforward
feeling, forceful, yet gentle. She knew he was aware that the Admiral of
his squadron had paid, and was paying, court to her; that a titled aide-
de-camp at Government House was conspicuously attentive; that one of the
richest squatters in the country was ready to make astonishing
settlements at any moment; and that there was not a young man of note
acquainted with her who did not offer her gallant service-in the ball-
room. She smiled as she thought of it. He was certainly not large, but
no finer head was ever set on a man's shoulders, powerful, strongly
outlined, nobly balanced. The eyes were everywhere; searching,
indomitable, kind. It was a head for a sculptor. Ambition became it
well. She had studied that head from every stand-point, and had had the
keenest delight in talking to the man. But, as he said, that was two
years before, and he had had bad luck since then.
She suddenly put this question to him: "Tell me all the truth about that
accident to the Ruby. You have been hiding something. The Admiral was
right, I know. Some evidence was not forthcoming that would have thrown
a different light on the affair."
"I can tell you nothing," he promptly replied.
"I shall find out one day," she said.
"I hope not; though I'm grateful that you wish to do so."
He rose hurriedly to his feet; he was looking at the harbour below.
He raised the field-glass he had carried from the veranda to his eyes.
He was watching a yacht making across the bay towards them.