Presently she heard a step, some one was approaching. There was a gleam of a cigar; a man’s figure; Paul.
“Is that you? I thought there would be no one here,” she said.
“We are the only passengers,” Paul answered. “But, as there are six of us, you cannot quite control us all.”
“I control no one.” (“Not even myself!” she thought.)
“You will have your wish, though you ought not to; despots shouldn’t be humored. You will have the place to yourself in a few moments, because I shall turn in soon—the time to finish this cigar—if you don’t mind the smoke?”
“No, I don’t mind,” she answered, a chill of disappointment creeping slowly over her.
“Hasn’t it been jolly?” Paul said, after a moment: he had seated himself on a stool near her bench. “I do love to be out like this, away from all bother.”
“Do you? I thought you didn’t.”
The words were no sooner out than she feared he would say, “Why?” And then her answer (for of course she must say something; she could not let him believe that she had had no idea)—her answer would show that she had been thinking about him.
But apparently Paul was not curious, he did not ask. “It’s very good for Cicely too; I wish I could take her oftener,” he went on. “Her promise to stay on here weighs upon her heavily. I don’t know whether she would have kept her word with me or not; but you know, of course, that Ferdie himself has written, telling her that she must stay?”