Quickly Olwen said, "It's very rude of me, but I must look at you, please: I must see your face!"
Then she turned the little beam right upon him.
Then she exclaimed, "Mr. Ellerton!"
"Yes——" he said, unmistakably sheepish.
Olwen burst out laughing. "You are a fraud," she exclaimed gaily. "You aren't one bit sorry that I refused you. You're trying not to, but you're looking——yes, relieved. You're glad! Don't pretend!"
"Oh, I say——"
"No! Don't pretend! You were laughing. You're feeling gladder than you've ever felt over anything in your life because I don't want to marry you! I know!"
Young Ellerton dragged his handkerchief from his cuff, pushed back his cap and wiped his forehead. "Bai Jove," he said with the sincerest admiration in his tone, "you are a clever little thing. I—I don't think any of the others have ever tumbled to that."
A moment later he found himself talking to her with more real ease and enjoyment than he had ever talked to a girl in his life; with real fluency. To her (during the second hour for which they were hung up) he confessed that no, he didn't want to get married. There were people——anyhow, men, who didn't. Not to the sweetest and prettiest girl in the world. Not to anybody. To tie himself up like that for life, declared the young sailor, was what he wouldn't want to do for anything under the sun; certainly not for anything under a hat. Never!
Olwen, finding she had ceased to be bored by him for the first time since she had left Mrs. Cartwright's turned her face towards him in the dark and plied him with question after laughing question.