“Pray don’t trouble yourself to make conversation for my benefit. I should have thought you would see by this time that your efforts were not appreciated.”
She walked away, and about an hour passed before Caerleon came upon her again, sitting in a basket-chair near the companion. His evil genius prompted him immediately to cross the deck to her side, and say—“Shall we resume our argument, Miss O’Malachy? I don’t think we finished it.”
“I do not wish to talk about nothing,” she returned; “and when I have anything to say to you, I will say it.”
“This sounds alarming. Do you mean that I am forbidden to speak to you unless I am first addressed?”
“I mean,” she said passionately, but in a low voice, “that I wish I might never have to speak to you again.”
Caerleon looked at her in utter bewilderment, not believing that she could be serious. “In the old days you would have apologised to me as soon as you had said that,” he said, trying to treat the speech as a joke. But she rose and looked him in the face.
“I wish I had never seen you,” she said. “This last month has been the most miserable time of my life.”
“What have I done?” asked Caerleon of himself helplessly, as she turned and went below. “Have I teased her too much? But no—she could never have meant all the things she has said, and she couldn’t expect me to think she did. I don’t know what to do.”
She did not appear in the saloon again that evening, and he sat through dinner gloomy and conscience-stricken. The Princess had letters to write when the meal was over, and Caerleon and Cyril went on deck for their usual constitutional. Cyril broke the silence first, as they tramped steadily and soundlessly backwards and forwards.
“I say, old man,” he began, with some hesitation, “excuse my asking, but how long are you going to let that girl treat you in this way?”