He was actually compelled to go to her and offer congratulations upon her escape, as he had congratulated the professor. If his manner to her parents had been filial, his manner to her was parental. " Well, Marjory," he said kindly, "you have been in considerable danger. I suppose you're glad to be through with it." She at that time made no reply, but by her casual turn he knew that he was expected to walk along by her side. The others knew it, too, and the rest of the party left them free to walk side by side in the rear.
" This is a beautiful country here-abouts if one gets a good chance to see it," he remarked. Then he added: "But I suppose you had a view of it when you were going out to Nikopolis? "
She answered in muffled tones. "Yes, we thought it very beautiful."
Did you note those streams from the mountains " That seemed to me the purest water I'd ever seen, but I bet it would make one ill to drink it. There is, you know, a prominent German chemist who has almost proven that really pure water is practical poison to the human stomach."
"Yes ? " she said.
There was a period of silence, during which he was perfectly comfortable because he knew that she was ill at ease. If the silence was awkward, she was suffering from it. As for himself, he had no inclination to break it. His position was, as far as the entire Wainwright party was concerned, a place where he could afford to wait. She turned to him at last. "Of course, I know how much you have done for us, and I want you to feel that we all appreciate it deeply-deeply." There was discernible to the ear a certain note of desperation.
" Oh, not at all," he said generously. " Not at all. I didn't do anything. It was quite an accident. Don't let that trouble you for a moment."
"Well, of course you would say that," she said more steadily. " But I-we-we know how good and how-brave it was in you to come for us, and I—we must never forget it."
As a matter of fact," replied Coleman, with an appearance of ingenuous candor, " I was sent out here by the Eclipse to find you people, and of course I worked rather hard to reach you, but the final meeting was purely accidental and does not redound to my credit in the least."
As he had anticipated, Marjory shot him a little glance of disbelief. " Of course you would say that," she repeated with gloomy but flattering conviction.