"He's asked you to marry him, I know that," said Captain Ross with such conviction that Olwen coloured a little with surprise. How did Captain Ross know about that? It was true, of course.... But he couldn't know quite what had happened. She almost laughed at the memory of Harold Ellerton's face in the light of the torch.
She hesitated....
It doesn't always follow that because a man is obstinate he may not be quick as well. It was very quickly that Captain Ross seized upon Olwen's hesitation, declaring, "He asked you on the night of the raid."
As quickly Olwen asked, "Did he tell you?"
A pause. Then "There was no nid, Miss Howel-Jones. I thought, somehow, that there'd be somebody else I'd have to be congrrrrratulating very soon," said Captain Ross, with a sort of grim triumph in his tone.
He straightened his back, giving that little forward shrug of an armless shoulder that Olwen could never see unmoved. But her eyes were on the window and on the glimpse of variegated Welsh landscape beyond.
"Since that is so," concluded Captain Ross in his most final tone, "will you allow me to offer my very best wishes to yourself and to Mr. Ell——"
"No! Please don't!" protested Olwen quickly.
She felt that this misunderstanding had gone on long enough. Long enough. She turned from the window and looked straight——not at Captain Ross, that she couldn't do! but at a water-colour drawing of Carnarvon Castle on the wall. She said, "You see, I am not engaged or anything to Mr. Ellerton!"
And even as she said it, she knew what a change her words had made.