Power escaped to the deck. He lit a cigar, and leaned on the starboard rail, gazing at a magnificent sunset which glorified the infinity of waters. He wished now he had avoided a mail steamer, with its elaborate elegancies. Had he not acted so precipitately he could have sought the rough hospitality of some grimy tramp, whence woman was barred, and whose skipper would leave him in peace.
Suddenly he was disturbed by Miss Sinclair, who joined him at the rail with a quiet confidence of demeanor that spoke volumes for her self-possession.
“Though I appeared to make light of it at the moment, I was glad to hear that you defended me,” she said, smiling at him with those lustrous, deep-seeing eyes.
He was rendered nearly tongue-tied by confusion; but managed to blurt out, awkwardly enough, that his championship had been involuntary. She laughed quite pleasantly.
“Does that mean that, now you have seen me, you deem me capable of any iniquity?” she said.
“You give me credit for a faculty of divination which I do not possess,” he retorted, wondering if she was really alluding to her own unsightliness.
“Ah, I think I shall like you,” she said. “Most people whom I meet for the first time try to show their pity by being sympathetic. They simply daren’t say, ‘Good gracious! what has happened to your poor face?’ so they put on their best hospital-ward-visitor air, and feel so sorry for me that I want to smack them. Now, you admit candidly that I may be as villainous as I look, and such honesty is a positive relief.”
“Even to earn your good opinion I refuse to accept that unfair reading of my words,” he said.
“Then what did you mean?”
“I’m afraid I was talking at random.”