At the end of a
laughing discussion Oddington and three others went to the
smoking-room, while the rest dispersed in various directions. Dan,
filled with his thoughts, was in the act of lighting his pipe, when the
clicking of footfalls and the rustling of skirts sounded on the bridge
steps. The next instant Virginia stood before him. The moonlight fell
upon her, outlining the girl distinctly in her long, blue,
double-breasted coat and the wealth of rippling dark hair flowing from
under an English yachting cap. She was smiling.
"Do I intrude upon your sacred precincts?" she asked, "or am I welcome?
I want to talk to you."
"You are welcome, Miss Howland," said Dan, knocking the fire from his
pipe and stuffing the briar-wood into his pocket, at the same time
glancing quickly toward the wheel where the mate and the quartermaster
were busy over a slight alteration in course.
"I feared that incident at the table--Reggie Wotherspoon's behavior, I
mean, might have upset you. Of course you know he meant nothing by it.
We all understand how he hates to be beaten in an argument. Really he
admires you--which is well for him, I can assure you."
Dan, deeply embarrassed, muttered something about understanding
perfectly about Wotherspoon, and that he knew him to be a decent enough
sort of chap.
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