The Captain of the Kansas | Page 4

have actually hit upon a topic that should prove inexhaustible. Believe me, Miss Maxwell, that is my pet subject. More than once, needing a listener, I have even lectured my long-suffering terrier, Joey, on the point."
Isobel laughed softly. The two standing in front of the bookcase started apart, with a sudden consciousness that they were speaking unguardedly, for Isobel's mirth had mockery in it--"there was a laughing devil in her sneer."
"By the way, where is Joey?" she asked.
The dog answered her question by appearing, with a stretch and a yawn, from beneath a bunk. He had heard his name in Courtenay's voice. That sufficed for Joey at any time.
"What a strange animal!" went on Isobel. "I should have thought that he would bark, or peep out at us, at the least, when we came in."
"Joey had a disturbed night," said Courtenay. "We passed the evening in the Hotel Colon, and he regards South American hotels as the natural dwelling-place of cats, and other bad characters. Here, he is at home, and he knew that I was present."
"Otherwise, he would have classified us as suspicious?"
"He is far too discriminating. What do you say, pup?"
Joey looked up at his master. Apparently, he found the conversation trivial; he yawned again, capaciously.
"You darling! You must have slept with one eye open," said Elsie, stooping to pat him.
"Oh, take care!" cried Isobel. "He may bite you."
"Not he! When you see that wistful look in a dog's eyes, have no fear. He wants to speak then. You won't bite me, will you, dear?" And Elsie sank on one knee, to stroke Joey's white coat; whereupon Joey tried to lick her face.
"Between the Stevenson Library and the captain's dog you are installed as a prime favorite on board the Kansas," commented Isobel. The other girl rose hurriedly. She had caught the touch of malice in the smooth voice.
"Captain Courtenay is too polite to remind us that we are intruders," she said lightly. "We forget that he is busy. Joey, candidly canine, did not try to hide his feelings."
Isobel swung her chair round to face the door.
"This is quite the best place in the ship," she said. "I am very comfortable, thank you. Please don't send us away, captain."
Before Courtenay could answer, the officer of the watch looked in.
"Cape Caraumilla bearing sou'west of the Buei Rock, sir," he announced, and vanished again.
"Don't hurry," said Courtenay, taking up his cap. "I must leave you for a few minutes."
He was gone, with Joey at his heels, and there was a brief silence.
"Really, Isobel, we should go back on deck," urged Elsie, uneasily. Already she half regretted the impulse which led her to intervene in her friend's special hobby.
"I like that. I didn't credit you with such guile, Elsie Maxwell. You snap up my nice captain beneath my very nose, and coolly propose that I should vacate the battlefield. Oh dear, no! I can't talk literature, but I can flirt, and I have not finished with Arthur yet by a long chalk."
"Isobel, if you knew how you hurt me--"
Miss Baring crossed her pretty feet, folded her arms, and gave her companion a smiling glance.
"So artful, too. 'Love me, love my dog,' eh? You actually took my breath away."
"It may amaze you to learn that I meant to achieve that much, at any rate," was Elsie's quiet retort as she turned to select a volume from the queer miscellany in the bookcase.
"Oh, don't be cruel. Leave me my Frenchman! Say you won't wheedle Edouard by quoting the classics of his native tongue! Poor me! Here have I been warming a serpent in my bosom."
With a moue of make-believe anguish Isobel leaned back in her chair. She was insolently conscious of her superior attractions. Was she not the richest heiress in Valparaiso? Had not her father chartered this ship? And was not Elsie even now flying from an unwelcome suitor? She knew full well that her friend would resent the slightest semblance of love-making on the part of any man on board. Already her astonishment at Elsie's unlooked-for vivacity was yielding to the humor of meeting such a rival. The Count might serve as a foil, but the real quarry now was the captain. That very night there would be a moon. And the sea was calm as a sheltered lake. Isobel's lips parted in a delighted smile as she tried to imagine Courtenay deserting her to discuss those celebrities whom Elsie had made the most of. And how she would play off the Count against the captain! They ought to be at daggers drawn long before the Straits of Magellan were reached. Certainly she never expected such sport on board such a humdrum ship as the Kansas.
Suddenly they both heard an excited bark from the dog, and the quick rush of feet