‘Am I less so here?’ said I, still preserving an air of indignation.
‘Do not let us quarrel,’ she said gently, with such a look of sweetness in her eyes as I should have thought their dark and glowing depths incapable of.
‘If we quarrel, it will not be my fault,’ said I, disguising myself with my voice, whilst I looked seawards that my face might not betray me.
At that moment the captain called out my name: ‘Can I have a word with you, sir?’ he cried along the short length of poop, standing as he was at the wheel, whilst we were conversing at the fore-end of the raised deck.
‘With pleasure,’ I answered.
‘I shall go into the cabin,’ said Miss Temple; ‘it is too hot here. You will come and tell me what he wants.’
I waited until she had descended the ladder, and then strolled over to the captain, determined to let him know by my careless air that whatever I did for him he must regard as an obligation, or as an expression of my gratitude; but that I was not to be commanded. I believed I could witness an expression of embarrassment in his fixed regard that I had not before noticed in him. He eyed me as though lost in thought, and I waited.
‘Would you object,’ said he, ‘to ascertain our latitude at noon to-day?’
‘Not in the least.’
He seemed to grow a little brighter. ‘And I should feel obliged,’ he continued, ‘if you’d work out the longitude.’