"Everything," she answered, in a voice that trembled with anger and indignation. "You ask me where I want to be sent, as though I were a—a——" her voice failed, and to the Captain's astonishment no less than her own, she burst into a passion of tears.
"You had better come to my cabin," said Calamity, when she had regained control of herself, and he led the way down the companion.
She felt abashed and humiliated now, and, metaphorically, kicked herself for her foolishness. Yet even so, she realised that this sudden burst of emotion had not been anger at his treatment of her, so much as despair at the thought that she must soon pass out of his life as utterly as though she had never been; that to him, henceforward, she would be something less, even, than a memory.
On reaching the cabin, Calamity shut the door and swung a chair round for her to sit upon.
"Now," he said, "just tell me what you want me to do. You say you have no home, and you object, apparently, to being placed in charge of the British Consul. What then?"
He spoke very quietly, almost gently, and because of this, perhaps, a feeling of utter hopelessness came over the girl.
"You must do as you think best," she answered in a voice from which all fire and spirit had gone.
"But just now you refused to let me do this."
"I know. I—I was foolish and unreasonable, I suppose."
Calamity remained silent for a minute or two, regarding her curiously. He read her better than she guessed. When he spoke again she recognised a new quality in his voice. It made her feel as if they two, though so near, were yet miles apart. There was a note of pity in it which hurt her more than anything she had ever known before because it demonstrated so positively the distance between them.