Brandon of the Engineers

"I should be glad to stay with Miss Kenwardine," he answered with a bow,

and when Don Sebastian went off opened a deck-chair and turned to the

girl.

"You see how I was situated!" he said awkwardly.

Clare smiled as she sat down. "Yes; you are not to blame. Indeed, I do

not see why you should apologize."

"Well," said Dick, "I hoped that I might meet you, though I feared you

would sooner I did not. When I saw you on the ladder, I felt I ought to

steal away, but must confess that I was glad when I found it was too

late. Somehow, things seem to bring us into opposition. They have done so

from the beginning."

"You're unnecessarily frank," Clare answered with a blush. "Since you

couldn't steal away, wouldn't it have been better not to hint that I was

anxious to avoid you? After all, I could have done so if I had really

wanted."

"I expect that's true. Of course what happened when we last met couldn't

trouble you as it troubled me."

"Are you trying to be tactful now?" Clare asked, smiling.

"No; it's my misfortune that I haven't much tact. If I had, I might be

able to straighten matters out."

"Don't you understand that they can't be straightened out?"

"I don't," Dick answered stubbornly. "For all that, I won't trouble you

again until I find a way out of the tangle."

Clare gave him a quick, disturbed look. "It would be much better if you

took it for granted that we must, to some extent, be enemies."

"No. I'm afraid your father and I are enemies, but that's not the same."

"It is; you can see that it must be," Clare insisted; and then, as if

anxious to change the subject, went on: "He was too busy to bring me

to-night so I came with Don Sebastian and his wife. It is not very gay in

Santa Brigida and one gets tired of being alone."

Her voice fell a little as she concluded, and Dick, who understood

something of her isolation from friends of her race, longed to take her

in his arms and comfort her. Indeed, had the quarter-deck been deserted

he might have tried, for he felt that her refusal had sprung from wounded

pride and a sense of duty. There was something in her manner that hinted

that it had not been easy to send him away. Yet he saw she could be firm

and thought it wise to follow her lead.

"Then your father has been occupied lately," he remarked.

"Yes; he is often away. He goes to Adexe and is generally busy in the

evenings. People come to see him and keep him talking in his room. Our

friends no longer spend the evening in the patio."