“Ruth—Lytton?” he repeated.
“Yes,” said the missionary. The girl studied this tall man who held her hand; and because she was brave, she asked him:
“Why were you—unhappy when you saw me?”
“Unhappy?” Black Pawl flung back his head and laughed. “I am never unhappy. There is nothing worth unhappiness.”
“Why?” she repeated.
His eyes met hers evenly; and a spark flashed between them. He touched her hand, which he still held, with his left, then dropped it.
“You are like some one I have known,” he said almost as if to himself, “—a little. That was my first thought. It is gone now. I was wrong. A fancy that comes to me often! The notion that the women I meet are—like some one I have known.”
He turned to the missionary, and the girl stepped back a little—but still watching him, as though she could not take her eyes away from him. Yet this was not strange, for Black Pawl was a man whom men and women anywhere would stop to look at twice. He asked the missionary now:
“What can I do for you?”
“Miss Lytton and I want passage home with you.”