It was not until the middle of the following afternoon that Opal Ledoux appeared on deck, when her father, with an air of pride, mingled with a certain curious element of timidity, presented to her in due form both the Englishman and his friend.
The eyes of the two young people flashed a recognition that the lips of each tacitly denied as they responded conventionally to the introduction.
Paul noticed that the shadow of her father's uneasiness was reflected upon her in a somewhat lesser but all too evident degree. And again he wondered.
A few moments of desultory conversation that was of no interest to Paul--and then the Count proposed a game of _écarté_, to which Verdayne and Ledoux assented readily enough.
_Ecarté!_ Bah! When did a boy of twenty ever want to play cards within sound of the rustle of a petticoat?--and _such_ a petticoat!
When the elderly gallant noted the attitude of the young fellow he cast a quick glance of suspicion at Opal. He would have withdrawn his proposal had he been able to find any plausible excuse. But it was too late. And with an inward invective on his own blundering, he followed the other gentlemen to the smoking-room.
And Paul and Opal were at last face to face--and alone!
He turned as the sound of the retreating steps died away and looked long and searchingly into her face. If the girl intended to ignore their former meeting, he thought, he would at once put that idea beyond all question. She bore his scrutiny with no apparent embarrassment. She was an American girl, and as she would have expressed it, she was "game!"
"Yes," he responded, "well--well, indeed, _at last_!"
"And," he went on, "I have been searching for you a long time, Opal!"
He had not intended to say that, but having said it, he would not take it back.
Then she remembered that she had said that she would call him "Paul" the first time she met him, and she smiled.
"Of course not! Neither do I! Why should we? The best things in life are the things we don't--and can't--understand. Is it not so?"
"Perhaps!" doubtfully. She had never thought of it in just that light before, but it might be true. It was human nature to be attracted by mystery. "But you have been looking for me, you say! Since when?--our race?" And her laugh rang out on the air with its old mocking rhythm.