"I think I should," replied the inexcusable young officer. "I think I should like to scold you myself, if I had the right."
"Ah! you'd like making up again, I dare say!" laughed Jin, and, with that, the black eyes delivered one telling shot straight into Frank's, and were instantly averted.
"We'll quarrel as much as you please, on those terms," said he gaily, and, for aught I can guess, might have proceeded to premature reconciliation forthwith, but that she knew the game so well, and checked him at the right moment.
"I quarrel with my friends, Captain Vanguard," she objected; "and you are only an acquaintance as yet. It takes me a long time to become really intimate with people. I wonder if I should like you more when I knew you better?"
"I'm sure you would," answered Frank, rattling the boat's chain, as he prepared for work again. "You would improve me so, do you see; and I am so willing to be improved. You wouldn't be able to do without me in a week."
"I don't think that would be a good plan," she said, in rather a mournful tone, gazing dreamily at him with her great black eyes, as if she saw miles into the future. "I can take good care of myself—nobody better. But if I like people at all I like them very much. It's my nature—I wish it wasn't."
"Then you don't like me at all?" he replied, in a low voice, bending down to alter the stretcher at his feet. "Just my luck!" Why couldn't he leave edged tools alone? Like a very child, he must needs play with them, only because they lay to his hand. How we all cut our fingers without the slightest occasion long after we believe ourselves old enough and wise enough to run alone!
"If I did, I shouldn't tell you so," answered Jin, lowering her voice in harmony with his. "Do you think a woman never keeps a secret? Captain Vanguard, I can't quite make you out; you puzzle me more than anybody I know."
Frank, sculling leisurely on, began to think this was very pleasant. It gratified him to suppose there should be depths unfathomed in his character; it flattered him to learn that this clever, accomplished woman had thought it worth while to try and search them to the bottom. Perhaps the exercise flushed it a little, but there was a very becoming colour in his face while he replied:
"The plainest fellow in the world, Miss Ross, and the honestest, as you'll find, when you know me better. I may chaff a little sometimes, like other people, but everybody can tell what's chaff and what's earnest. You can, I'm sure."