She paled, and her eyes fell before his stern gaze, which did not deceive her at all, for she read the unspoken agony of his thought.
“I am sorry,” she murmured, “not so much on my own account, though I shall be more careful in future, but because some one has suffered. Who is it? Not one of our own people, I hope?”
“A fireman; I think his name is Gama. You have hardly seen him, I fancy, but I regret his loss exceedingly. It must have been the merest accident.”
The captain of the Kansas was certainly preoccupied, or he would never have failed to inquire the extent of Joey’s injury. Nor would either he or Elsie have forgotten that Christobal was not “one of our own people,” though the girl might protest hotly against any invidious twisting of the phrase.
The Spaniard missed nothing of Courtenay’s solicitude for Elsie’s well-being, nor of her shy confusion. By operation of the occult law which governs static electricity, it was possible that the magnetism flowing between those two communicated itself to a third person. However that might be, Christobal was under no sort of doubt that, unless another “accident” intervened, he had lost all chance of winning this woman’s love.
But he swallowed the bitter knowledge and said:
“If you undertake to hold the dog, Miss Maxwell, I will bind his paw.”
“Oh, my ducky darling little pet! Did I actually forget all about his dear wounded little foot? And he came hopping in so bravely, too, carrying himself with such a grand air. Come, then, Joey dear! Let us see what has happened. Yes, this is the doctor, but he won’t hurt you. He is so good and kind to little dogs; he will wrap up the bleedy part until it is quite nice and comfy.”
“Your only patient, doctor,” said the captain, cheerily, when Elsie had done fondling the dog. “Even crediting our poor fireman to the enemy’s score, we have had the best of the first round.”
“Is there any likelihood of a second attack?”