"Ah! I still spoil things," she wailed. "I was so happy telling you about--about Faircloth. And yet somehow I've hurt you again. I know I have."
Carteret took her by the elbow lightly, gently, carrying her onward beside him over the wide pallor of the asphalt.
"Hurt me, you vanitatious creature? Against babes of your tender age, I long ago became hurt-proof"--he gaily lied to her. "What do you take me for?--A fledgling like the Ditton boy, or poor Harry Ellice, with whose adolescent affections you so heartlessly played chuck-farthing at our incomparable Henrietta's party to-night?--No, no--but joking apart, what exactly is it you want me to do for you? Take you to Marseilles for the day, perhaps, to meet this remarkable young sea-captain and go over his ship?"
"He is remarkable," Damaris chimed in, repeating the epithet with eager and happier emphasis.
"Unquestionably--if I'm to judge both by your account of him and by the tenor of his letter."
"And you would take me? Oh! dear Colonel Sahib, how beautifully good you are to me."
He slipped Damaris' hand within his arm, still bearing her onward. The last of the long line of gas-lamps upon the esplanade, marking the curve of the bay, was now left behind. A little further and the road forked--the main one followed the shore. The other--a footpath--mounted to the left through the delicate gloom and semi-darkness of the wood clothing the promontory. Carteret did not regret that impending obscurity, apprehending it would be less embarrassing, under cover of it, to embark on certain themes which must be embarked upon were he to bring his purpose to full circle.
"Listen, my dear," he told her, "while I expound. Certain laws of friendship exist, between men, which are imperative. They must be respected. To evade them, still worse, wilfully break them is to be guilty of unpardonably bad taste and bad feeling--to put it no higher. Had your father chosen to speak to me of this matter, well and good. I should have felt honoured by his confidence, have welcomed it--for he is dearer to me than any man living and always must be.--But the initiative has to come from him. Till he speaks I am dumb. For me to approach the subject first is not possible."