More About Peggy | Page 3

He had carried the book upstairs earlier in the morning, and placed it in a corner of the room where he believed it would be safe from alien hands; but, alas! the best-laid plans "gang aft a-gley," and when he went in search, he met with a shock of disappointment. The book had been appropriated, and the thief was seated in the very corner which he had destined for himself, bending over the pages with every appearance of absorption. Her face was hidden from view, and all that could be seen was a trim little figure in a trim white gown, a pair of trim little feet, a sleek brown head, and a well-rounded cheek. No one could deny that it was a pleasing figure, but the lordly stranger was too much ruffled in his feelings to be influenced by appearances. His manner was perhaps a trifle less haughty than it would have been, had the thief taken the shape of an elderly gentleman, but he never wavered in his intention, and only stopped for an imperceptible moment in his progress up the room to demand a return of the volume.
"Excuse me. Ah! My book, I think! Sorry to interrupt you, but--"
The young lady laid down the book and lifted her face to his. A flicker as of mingled surprise and pleasure passed over her features as she saw who it was that stood before her, but she showed not the slightest sign of discomfiture.
"I beg a thousand pardons!" she said, and inclined her head in such a bow as an empress might bestow on a blundering and ignorant supplicant. It was such a very grand air for such a small person that the big officer drew a breath of surprise, and gazed down with a startled interest. The girl's features were delicately modelled; the brows might have been drawn with a pencil, so clear and perfect was the arch which they described, and the brilliant hazel eyes met his with a mocking glance. For almost the first time in his life a spasm of discomfiture seized him, a struggling suspicion that his conduct had not been altogether above reproach. He stood with the book in his hand, hesitating, uncertain.
"If you would care to read it, pray keep it! I shall be most happy to lend it to you."
The girl waved her hand with a gracious patronage.
"Not for the world, until you have finished! When you have no more use for it yourself, perhaps you will be good enough to renew the offer. Meantime, there are plenty of other books. The library seems very large."
"I make a point of never reading the ship's books. You never--aw--know who has had them last!" drawled the stranger, sweeping a scathing glance over the well-filled shelves; "and, as a rule, they are in such shocking condition. People seem to take a malign satisfaction in tearing out the most important pages, so that, after wading through a whole volume, you are left in uncertainty as to what really happened."
"But sometimes that is a blessing in disguise, for by exercising a little imagination you can make the story end as you like, and spare yourself the pain of disappointment. I rarely read a book without reflecting how much better I could have finished it myself," remarked the young lady, with an assurance which evoked a smile on the officer's impassive countenance.
"You don't look much like an authoress," he said, surveying the dainty little figure approvingly, and calling up a mental picture of the spectacled and cadaverous female invariably associated with a literary career in the masculine mind. "I am afraid my imagination will hardly stand such a strain; but books are the only refuge for the destitute on a voyage, especially during the first few days, when you find yourself shut up with a herd of strangers whom you have never met before in the course of your life. There is only one thing to do under the circumstances, and that is to lie low, and speak to no one until you have found your bearings and discovered who is who. If you go about talking to strangers, you can never tell in what sort of a set you may land yourself."
"You can't, indeed! It's appalling to think of!" agreed the young lady, with a dramatic gesture of dismay which brought her little ringed hands together in decided emphasis. "For my own part I get on well enough," she proceeded, contradicting herself with unruffled composure, "for I can find something interesting in all of my fellow-creatures; but I feel it for my maid! The couriers and valets are so very exclusive that she has been snubbed more than once because of our inferior station. Naturally she feels it keenly. I observe that those people are most