"But——oh——very well," murmured Olwen.
"It's this," said Captain Ross, peremptorily, "are you or are you not engaged to that——to Ellerton?"
Olwen had known her Chief sharp and abrupt before. For weeks she'd never known him anything else. This was his sharpest yet. She was intimidated.... Then suddenly that went, and she had all the boldness of the kitten turning to face the big dog.
"Engaged?" she repeated. "What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? Engaged to be married." Captain Ross explained. "May I have a straight answer to that, please?"
There was a pause. Perhaps Olwen was sorting her thoughts. She smiled, at first uncertainly. Then, also uncertainly, she said, "But surely, Captain Ross, you didn't come down from London specially to ask me that?"
With ominous patience Captain Ross nodded that sleek, black, Tom-cat head of his, almost as if to some old enemy he had expected to see cropping up at some time. "Why, of course, it's a lot to ask of a woman, a plain answer to a plain question. Right away, that is. But perhaps in haff a minute or so?" he suggested, adding, at once, "Are you engaged to him or are you not? Yes or no?"
Olwen, wondering at her own boldness, parried with, "If—if it wasn't worth coming down specially for, h-have you the right to ask me?"
"Say I came down specially, then," Captain Ross conceded reluctantly. "Now are you going to tell me?"
"Who said," asked Olwen, with a glance out of the window, "that there was anything to tell?"