I hope you don't think I am forward in saying this, but
really to-night, when I saw you at the head of the gangway, I could
scarcely refrain from going directly to you and greeting you. I am
afraid I made rather a hash of it with Captain Kempt. He is too much
of a gentleman to have shown any surprise at my somewhat boisterous
accosting of him, and you know I didn't remember him at all, but I saw
that you were under his care, and chanced it. Luckily it seems to have
been Captain Kempt after all, but I fear I surprised him, taking him
by storm, as it were."
"I thought you did it very nicely," said Dorothy, "and, indeed, until
this moment I hadn't the least suspicion that you didn't recognize
him. He is a dear old gentleman, and I'm very fond of him."
"I say," said the Lieutenant, lowering his voice, "I nearly came a
cropper when I spoke of that Russian affair before your friend. I was
thinking of-- of-- well, I wasn't thinking of Miss Kempt--"
"Oh, she never noticed anything," said Dorothy hurriedly. "You got out
of that, too, very well. I thought of telling her I had met you before
while she and I were in New York together, but the opportunity never
seemed-- well, I couldn't quite explain, and, indeed, didn't wish to
explain my own inexplicable conduct at the bank, and so trusted to
chance. If you had greeted me first tonight, I suppose"-- she smiled
and looked up at him-- "I suppose I should have brazened it out
somehow.
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