Lieutenant De Vere gazed in the most unfeigned astonishment, not to
say dismay, at the strange and unexpected sight of Captain Lancaster
coolly leading the unknown beauty across the unsteady deck. As he said
of himself when relating it afterward, he might have been "knocked down
with a feather."
And when he saw that they were coming straight toward him, and that
Lancaster had quite an air of proprietorship, and that the girl was
looking up with an arch smile at him, he was more astonished than ever,
he was almost stupefied with amazement. Did Lancaster know her, really?
And why had he kept it to himself, selfish fellow?
And then he was overpoweringly conscious that they had come up to him.
He struggled to his feet and came near falling back over the railing
into the ocean, out of sheer wrath, for just then Captain Lancaster
said, with just a touch of raillery in his tone:
"Miss West, permit me to present my friend, Lieutenant De Vere."
"Lancaster knew her all the while, and he has been chaffing me all this
time," flashed angrily through De Vere's mind but he suppressed his
rising chagrin and said, with his most elaborate bow:
"I am most happy to know your name, Miss West. I have been longing to
know it ever since I met you this afternoon."
"What audacity!" thought Lancaster to himself, with a frown that only
grew darker as the girl replied, gayly:
"And I am very glad to know that you are Captain Lancaster's friend.
You will help to amuse me on the way over."
She sat down between them, Lancaster on one hand, De Vere on the other.
The lieutenant looked across the bright, sparkling young face at his
friend.
"Do you mean to tell me that this is _the_ baby?" pointedly.
"Yes."
"But, how--" pausing helplessly.
Lancaster laughed, and Leonora joined her musical treble to his.
"You see, De Vere, there was a mistake all around," he said. "I found
out yesterday that the baby existed only in our imaginations."
"You might have told me," De Vere muttered, reproachfully.
"I was reserving a pleasant surprise for you to-day," Lancaster
rejoined.
Leonora turned her bright eyes up to his face.
"When did you come aboard?" she inquired, naïvely.
"At the last moment," he replied, rather coldly.
"You were detained?"
"Yes," dryly.
A sudden light broke over De Vere's mind. He laughed provokingly.
"Miss West, would you like to know what detained him?" he inquired.
"Yes," she replied.
"He went up to Blank Street, to fetch you," laughing.
"No?"
"Yes, indeed. Ask him, if you doubt me."
She looked around at Lancaster. There was a flush on his face, a frown
between his eyebrows.
"You did not, really, did you?" she asked, naïvely.
"I did," curtly.
"Don't tease him about it. He was furiously angry because you ran away
and came by yourself," said De Vere. He was beginning to turn the
tables on Lancaster now, and he enjoyed it immensely.
"But I did not come by myself. My friends where I boarded--Mrs. Norton
and her husband--came with me. I did not know Captain Lancaster was
coming for me. If I had known I should have waited," apologetically.
"You do not know what you missed by not waiting," said De Vere. "When
Lancaster came aboard he had a great big hot-house bouquet."
"And I do so love flowers," said Leonora, looking round expectantly at
the captain.
"Ah, you needn't look round at him now. It is too late," said De Vere,
wickedly. "When he came scrambling up the gang-plank, at the last
moment, and didn't see you anywhere on deck, he was so overcome by his
disappointment, to use the mildest phrase, that he threw the beautiful
bouquet out into the sea."
"Ah! you did not, really, did you, Captain Lancaster?" exclaimed
Leonora, regretfully.
"Yes; the flowers were beginning to droop," he replied, fibbing
unblushingly; and then he arose and walked away from them, too much
exasperated at De Vere's chaff to endure his proximity a minute longer.
He crossed over to the other side of the deck and stood there with his
face turned from them, gazing out at the beautiful, foam-capped billows
of old ocean with the golden track of the sunset shining far across the
waves. There came to him suddenly the remembrance that he was homeward
bound.
He was homeward bound. In a few days, or weeks at most, he should be
at home; he should be at Lancaster Park; he should meet the girl his
vixenish aunt had chosen for his future bride. He wondered vaguely
what she would be like--pretty, he hoped; as pretty as--yes, as pretty
as--Leonora West.
Her clear, sweet voice floated across the deck, the words plainly
audible.
"You are both soldiers. How pleasant! I do so adore soldiers."
"You make me very happy, Miss West," cried De Vere, sentimentally, with
his hand upon his heart.
"But not," continued Leonora, with a careless glance at him, "not in
their ordinary clothes, you understand, Lieutenant De Vere. It is the
uniform that delights me. I think it is just too lovely for anything."
De Vere, crushed to the earth for a moment, hastily rallied himself.
"I would give the half of my kingdom," he said, "if only I had gone
traveling in my red coat."
"I wish you had," she replied. "But some day--after we get to England,
I mean--you will let me see you in it, won't you?"
"Every day, if you like. I shall only be too happy," vivaciously.
"I'll be shot if you shall have an invitation to Lancaster Park, you
popinjay!" Lancaster muttered to himself, in unreasonable irritation.
He moved away a little further from them, out of earshot of their talk,
but he could not as easily divert his thoughts from them.
"How silly people can be upon occasion!" he thought. "How dare he
get up a flirtation with Mrs. West's niece? She is wholly out of
his sphere. Once she gets to England, I dare swear he will never be
permitted to lay eyes on her again. He shall not make a fool of the
child. She is but a child, and ignorant of those laws of caste that
will trammel Mrs. West's niece in England. I will speak to him."