"Ye-es—I suppose so," admitted Fancy with a sigh. "But it makes things so awkward—" She paused and knit her brows, as one considering a hard problem.
"What's awkward?"
Her response to this, delayed for a few seconds, was evasive when it came.
"I used to think you an' Cap'n Hunken was such friends there was nothin' in the world you wouldn' do for him."
"Ah!" Cai glanced at her with sharp suspicion. "So that's the latest game, is it? He's been gettin' at you—a mere child like you!—and sends you off here to work on my feelin's! . . . I thought better of 'Bias: upon my soul, I did."
"An' you'd better go on thinkin' better," retorted Fancy with spirit. "Cap'n Hunken sent me? What next? . . . Why, he never spoke a word to me!"
"Then I don't see—"
"Why I'm here? No, you don't; but you needn't take up with guesses o' that sort."
"I'm sorry if I mistook ye, missy."
"You ought to be. Mistook me?—O' course you did. And as for Cap'n Hunken's sendin' me, he don't even know yet that he's lost his money: and if he did he'd be too proud, as you ought to know."