“Please lower the gas,” she said, shading her eyes with her hand; “you must excuse me, Mr. Smith, for seeing you in such deshabille, but I felt sure you would appreciate this liberty, and feel more free and unrestrained than if I had prepared formally to see you.”
“I do appreciate and thank you for your consideration,” I said, feeling assured that if she had known how different was the effect of her deshabille from what she intended it should be, she would not have been so considerate.
“I sent for you, Mr. Smith,” she continued, in a whispering kind of voice, “that I might express my gratitude for your heroic efforts to save me yesterday.”
I would have suspected any one else of irony, but I knew she was in earnest.
“Really, Miss Finnock, you overestimate my conduct,” I said; “I must be candid with you, and tell you that I was doing all I could to save myself, which was almost impossible with yourself and Miss Rurlestone on my arms.”
She looked at me with a queer little smile, and said: “What a trying ordeal for you! If no boat had been near us, ‘twould have been an effectual test of your love, indeed. Would you have found it difficult to have made a choice, if you had seen you could not save but one?”
“Not at all,” I replied, hoping she would construe the preference as intended for herself, and let the subject rest.
She played with the tassel of her wrapper, and said softly, “Which would you have chosen?”
I pretended not to have heard, and asked if she had suffered any serious inconvenience from the accident?