The Captain of the Kansas | Page 2

dear girl. He has such a lot. See if he doesn't
wear three different colored shirts for breakfast, lunch, and tea. And, if
you refuse to help, who is to take care of le p'tit Edouard while I give
the captain a trot round. Don't look cross, there's a darling, though you
do remind me, when you open your eyes that way, of a delightful little
American schoolma'am I met in Lima. She had drifted that far on her
holidays, and I believe she was horrified with me."
"Perhaps she thought you were really the dreadful person you made
yourself out to be. Now, Isobel, that does not matter a bit in Valparaiso,
where you are known, but in Paris and London--"
"Where I mean to be equally well known, it is a passport to smart
society to be un peu risqué. Steward! Give my compliments to Captain
Courtenay, and say that Miss Maxwell and Miss Baring hope he will
favor them with his company to tea."

Elsie's bright, eager face flushed slightly. She leaned forward, with a
certain squaring of the shoulders, being a determined young person in
some respects.
"For once, I shall let you off," she said in a low voice. "So I give you
fair warning, Isobel, I must not be included in impromptu invitations of
that kind. Next time I shall correct your statement most emphatically."
"Good gracious! I only meant to be polite. Tut, tut! as dad says when he
can't swear before ladies, I shan't make the running for you any more."
Elsie drummed an impatient foot on the deck. There was a little pause.
Isobel closed her eyes lazily, but she opened them again when she
heard her friend say:
"I am sorry if I seem crotchety, dear. Indeed, it is no pretense on my
part. You cannot imagine how that man Ventana persecuted me. The
mere suggestion of any one's paying me compliments and trying to be
fascinating is so repellent that I cringe at the thought. And even our
sailor-like captain will think it necessary to play the society clown, I
suppose, seeing that we are young and passably good-looking."
Isobel Baring raised her head from the cushions.
"Ventana was a determined wooer, then? What did he do?" she asked.
"He--he pestered me with his attentions. Oh, I should have liked to flog
him with a whip!"
"He was always that sort of person--too serious," and the head dropped
again.
The steward returned. He was a half-caste; his English was to the point.
"De captin say he busy, he no come," was his message.
Elsie's display of irritation vanished in a merry laugh. Isobel bounced
up from the depths of the chair; her dark eyes blazed wrathfully.

"Tell him--" she began.
Then she mastered her annoyance sufficiently to ascertain what it was
that Captain Courtenay had actually said, and she received a courteous
explanation in Spanish that the commander could not leave the
chart-house until the Kansas had rounded the low-lying, red-hued Cape
Caraumilla, which still barred the ship's path to the south--the first
stage of the long voyage from Valparaiso to London.
But pertinacity was a marked trait of the Baring family; otherwise,
Isobel's father, a bluff, church-warden type of man, would not have
won his way to the chief place in the firm of Baring, Thompson,
Miguel & Co., Mining and Export Agents, the leading house in Chile's
principal port. Notwithstanding Elsie's previous outburst, the steward
was sent back to ask if the ladies might visit the bridge later.
Meanwhile, would Captain Courtenay like a cup of tea? All things
considered, there was only one possible answer; Captain Courtenay
would be charmed if they favored him with both the tea and their
company.
"I thought so," cried Isobel, triumphantly. "Come on, Elsie! Let us
climb the ladder of conquest. The steward will bring the tea-things. The
chart-house is just splendid. It will provide a refuge when the Count
becomes too pressing."
There was a tightening of Elsie's lips to which Isobel paid no heed. The
imminent protest was left unspoken, for Courtenay's voice came to
them:
"Please hold on by the rail. If a foot were to slip on one of those brass
treads the remainder of the day would be a compound of tears and
sticking-plaster."
"I think you said 'reserved,'" whispered Isobel to her companion with a
wicked little laugh. To Courtenay, peering through a hatch in the
hurricane deck, she cried:
"Is the brass rail more dependable than you, captain?"

"It will serve your present purpose, Miss Baring," said he, not taking
the hint.
Gathering her skirts daintily in her left hand, Isobel tripped up the steep
stairs. Elsie followed. Courtenay, who had the manner and semblance
of the first lieutenant of a warship, stood outside a haven