CHAPTER VIII
It was not until the dinner hour on the following day that Paul and Opal met again. One does not require an excuse for keeping to one's stateroom during an ocean voyage—especially during the first few days—and the girl, though in excellent health and a capital sailor, kept herself secluded.
She wanted to understand herself and to understand this stranger who was yet no stranger. For a girl who had looked upon life as she had she felt woefully unsophisticated. But the Boy? He was certainly not a man of the world, who through years of lurid experience had learned to look upon all women as his legitimate quarry. If he had been that sort, she told herself, she would have been on her guard instinctively from the very first. But she knew he was too young for that—far too young—- and his eyes were frank and clear and open, with no dark secrets behind their curtained lids. But what was he—and who?
When the day was far spent, she knew that she was no nearer a solution than she had been at dawn, so she resolved to join the group at table and put behind her the futile labor of self-examination. She would not, of course, deign to show any leniency toward the offender—indeed not! She would not vouchsafe one unnecessary word for his edification.
But she took elaborate care with her toilet, selected her most becoming gown and drove her maid into a frenzy by her variations of taste and temper.
It was truly a very bewitching Opal who finally descended to the salon and joined the party of four masculine incapables who had spent the day in vain search for amusement. Paul Zalenska rose hastily at her entrance and though she made many attempts to avoid his gaze she was forced at last to meet it. The electric spark of understanding flashed from eye to eye, and both thrilled in answer to its magnetic call. In the glance that passed between them was lurking the memory of a kiss.
Opal blushed faintly. How dare he remember! Why, his very eyes echoed that triumphant laugh she could not forget. She stole another glance at him. Perhaps she had misjudged him—but—
She turned to respond to the greeting of her father and the other two gentlemen, and soon found herself seated at the table opposite the Boy she had so recently vowed to shun. Well, she needn't talk to him, that was one consolation. Yet she caught herself almost involuntarily listening for what he would say at this or that turn of the conversation and paying strict—though veiled—attention to his words.
It was a strange dinner. No one felt at ease. The air was charged with something that all felt too tangibly oppressive, yet none could define, save the two—who would not.