What have I done or not done that suggested in your
mind ideas of my responsibility to you?"
Dan shook the fire from his pipe and smiled. "Why, you haven't done a
thing or left a thing undone," he said. "I thought the humor of my
suggestion would strike you as funny, make you laugh. But it didn't,
so I'll be serious. You were decent to me on the _Tampico_ and before;
and to-night, I don't know, but the lights and the music and the night
and all seemed to have gone into me, and I wanted to talk to a
woman--to you--out here in the moonlight, not as we've talked before,
but as a man and woman who feel pretty much the same way about many
things might talk. This was what I had in mind when I spoke of
responsibility. Not an alarming one, would you say?"
The girl gazing out into the darkness did not speak.
"I wanted you to look down at the harbor there and exclaim over the
path the moon is cutting from the horizon to that queer little
lighthouse on the point; and I wanted you to talk enthusiastic nonsense
about the big, soft stars and the cigarette lights under the trees; and
I--I just wanted to listen and, of course, agree with all you said."
Dan was smiling as he spoke; but the girl, whose eyes had fallen
beneath his steady gaze, was aware that no jest underlay his light
words.
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