She pursed her pretty lips and remained silent.
"Now you want me to go away, I see," he remarked. "This is the first time you have let me talk to you since we came aboard, and already you are weary."
"Yes, I am already weary," she echoed.
She put her little hand over her lips and yawned daintily but deliberately.
Burning with chagrin, he lifted his hat to her and walked away.
"I can never speak to her but she makes me repent," he said to himself, and went and leaned moodily against the side, while he continued to himself: "What a little thorn she is, and how sharply she can wound."
Leonora watched the retreating figure a moment, then leisurely opened her book again and settled herself to read. But she was not very deeply interested, it seemed, for now and then she glanced up under her long lashes at the tall, moveless figure of the soldier. At length she put down the book and went across to him.
Gazing intently out to sea, he started when a hand soft and white as a snow-flake fluttered down upon his coat-sleeve. He glanced quickly around.
"Miss West!" he exclaimed, in surprise.
She glanced up deprecatingly into his face.