“Brian!”
Betty Chatterton sprang to Dillon, clutching his arm.
“Miss Chatterton,” continued O’Hagan, “I beg you to accept my escort. It will be better if we go at once.”
She looked from man to man, and grew pale to the lips. Sir Brian glassily stared directly at O’Hagan and ignored the hand that clung to his rigid arm. The girl released her clasp and turned imploring blue eyes upon the Captain.
“Oh, Captain O’Hagan,” she said, “there is some dreadful mistake! If you think—ah! how can I say what I mean? Will you believe me”—she frankly met his gaze—“if I tell you that Sir Brian and I are just chums?” Her eyes were flooded with tears. “He is awfully—dreadfully unhappy about . . .” She laid her hand hesitatingly upon O’Hagan’s arm. “I know you have done him no wrong. Won’t you believe me, too? Can’t we be friends?”
(“I had anticipated something altogether more vulgar, Raymond,” O’Hagan recently informed me. “I will confess that I was surprised and delighted. Miss Chatterton had the instincts of a lady and the generosity of a gentleman! A really lovable nature, my boy. That infernal ass deserved nothing so fine as her friendship!”)
The Captain raised her hand to his lips, bending over it with stately courtesy. Again their eyes met—and these two understood one another.
“Betty,” began Dillon, advancing.
She turned to him.
“Stay where you are, Brian,” she said, with a sudden note of command. “You must see that I don’t want to be mixed up in your quarrels. And—Captain O’Hagan is right. We cannot expect the world to understand us. You shouldn’t have come here to-night. No, I’m not angry with you, silly boy—but it wasn’t fair to me. I can see that, now. You had nearly made a big mistake, Brian. Good-bye.”