"Really, Isobel, we should go back on deck," urged Elsie, uneasily.
Already she half regretted the impulse which led her to intervene in
her friend's special hobby.
"I like that. I didn't credit you with such guile, Elsie Maxwell. You
snap up my nice captain beneath my very nose, and coolly propose that I
should vacate the battlefield. Oh dear, no! I can't talk literature,
but I can flirt, and I have not finished with Arthur yet by a long
chalk."
"Isobel, if you knew how you hurt me--"
Miss Baring crossed her pretty feet, folded her arms, and gave her
companion a smiling glance.
"So artful, too. 'Love me, love my dog,' eh? You actually took my
breath away."
"It may amaze you to learn that I meant to achieve that much, at any
rate," was Elsie's quiet retort as she turned to select a volume from
the queer miscellany in the bookcase.
"Oh, don't be cruel. Leave me my Frenchman! Say you won't wheedle
Edouard by quoting the classics of his native tongue! Poor me! Here
have I been warming a serpent in my bosom."
With a moue of make-believe anguish Isobel leaned back in her chair.
She was insolently conscious of her superior attractions. Was she not
the richest heiress in Valparaiso? Had not her father chartered this
ship? And was not Elsie even now flying from an unwelcome suitor? She
knew full well that her friend would resent the slightest semblance of
love-making on the part of any man on board. Already her astonishment
at Elsie's unlooked-for vivacity was yielding to the humor of meeting
such a rival. The Count might serve as a foil, but the real quarry now
was the captain. That very night there would be a moon. And the sea
was calm as a sheltered lake. Isobel's lips parted in a delighted
smile as she tried to imagine Courtenay deserting her to discuss those
celebrities whom Elsie had made the most of. And how she would play
off the Count against the captain! They ought to be at daggers drawn
long before the Straits of Magellan were reached. Certainly she never
expected such sport on board such a humdrum ship as the Kansas.
Suddenly they both heard an excited bark from the dog, and the quick
rush of feet along the deck; Courtenay's voice reached them with a new
and startling note in it.
"Stop that!" he shouted.
There was an instant's pause. Their alert ears caught the sounds of a
distant scuffle. Then a pistol shot jarred the peaceful drone of the
ship.