But she did not return to the paddle-box, choosing rather to sit at her tent-door, on the little piece of deck that was sacred to her use, in case Richard should be in the same mind when he returned. Not that she would mind Captain Franks—or any one else hearing anything he had to say; but if the poor man was determined to make an exhibition of himself, ’twas kinder to let him do it in private. It was also kinder, no doubt, to take the initiative in the conversation when he appeared, that he might have another moment in which to recover his temper.
“That’s better—a thousand times better!” she was looking at him critically. “You were quite coffee-coloured—black coffee—just now. Now y’are tea-coloured, and I suppose the tea will get weaker and weaker till you have your natural complexion again? And it’s nice to see you looking respectable and like yourself. Did you—ah, now, did you really come back in those rags expecting I’d mend them?”
“Not quite such a fool!” snapped Richard. He was really very angry, that was clear, and any sense of guilt Eveleen might have felt evaporated promptly. “Is it quite beyond you to understand that I am exceedingly displeased to find you here?”
“Didn’t I tell you I’d come the next time without asking your leave? Sure y’ought have known.”
“Perhaps I ought. At any rate, pray believe that if it had been possible to go back and put you on shore again it should have been done.”
“But there’s no difficulty in believing that!” innocently.
He restrained himself with an effort. “Can’t you realise that were you a child, these mad escapades would be viewed more leniently? But for a female of what should be a discreet age——”
“Discreet?” she snatched the word out of his mouth. “When I behave the way you’d consider suitable to a female of discreet age I’ll be dead and gone! Maybe you’ll be satisfied with me then, Major Ambrose!”
“Not I. I shall be dead long before that,” sardonically, and Eveleen screamed with laughter. Perhaps it was as well that Brian came round the tent into the reserved space at the moment.
“Sorry to interrupt your private conversation,” he said, “but positively there’s nowhere else to go.”