CHAPTER XV

THE CHARM ACKNOWLEDGED

"'Even he that flies shall follow for thy sake-- Shall kiss that would not kiss thee' (yea, kiss me), 'When thou wouldst not' (when I would not kiss thee!)"

Swinburne.

Olwen's bright eyes opened in real astonishment. Here was a bewildering s.e.x!

"_Long enough_," it said. "_Hasn't this been going on long enough._" ... When----well, whose was the fault that anything had been _long_?

Or did Captain Ross mean that? Or what did he mean?

"I don't know what you mean," she confessed, standing there all at sea.

Then she put out a hand to the draperies of that door. Bewilderment gave place for the moment to a stronger impulse; hospitality. The little Welshwoman must feed her guest. "Do come into the dining-room," she begged, "and have some tea first, anyhow----"

But Captain Ross stood rock-like. He had seen that rookery of black heads through the dining-room window.

"Thanks; I had tea in the train," he said curtly.

"I came to ask you something, and I'd like to know about it right now."

"But----oh----very well," murmured Olwen.

"It's this," said Captain Ross, peremptorily, "are you or are you not engaged to that----to Ellerton?"

Olwen had known her Chief sharp and abrupt before. For weeks she'd never known him anything else. This was his sharpest yet. She was intimidated.... Then suddenly that went, and she had all the boldness of the kitten turning to face the big dog.

"Engaged?" she repeated. "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? Engaged to be married." Captain Ross explained. "May I have a straight answer to that, please?"

There was a pause. Perhaps Olwen was sorting her thoughts. She smiled, at first uncertainly. Then, also uncertainly, she said, "But surely, Captain Ross, you didn't come down from London specially to ask me that?"

With ominous patience Captain Ross nodded that sleek, black, Tom-cat head of his, almost as if to some old enemy he had expected to see cropping up at some time. "Why, of course, it's a lot to ask of a woman, a plain answer to a plain question. Right away, that is. But perhaps in haff a minute or so?" he suggested, adding, at once, "Are you engaged to him or are you not? Yes or no?"

Olwen, wondering at her own boldness, parried with, "If--if it _wasn't_ worth coming down specially for, h-have you the right to ask me?"

"Say I came down specially, then," Captain Ross conceded reluctantly.

"Now are you going to tell me?"

"Who said," asked Olwen, with a glance out of the window, "that there was anything to tell?"

"He's asked you to marry him, I know that," said Captain Ross with such conviction that Olwen coloured a little with surprise. How did Captain Ross know about that? It was true, of course.... But he couldn't know quite _what_ had happened. She almost laughed at the memory of Harold Ellerton's face in the light of the torch.

She hesitated....

It doesn't always follow that because a man is obstinate he may not be quick as well. It was very quickly that Captain Ross seized upon Olwen's hesitation, declaring, "He asked you on the night of the raid."

As quickly Olwen asked, "Did he _tell_ you?"

A pause. Then "There was no nid, Miss Howel-Jones. I thought, somehow, that there'd be somebody else I'd have to be congrrrrratulating very soon," said Captain Ross, with a sort of grim triumph in his tone.

He straightened his back, giving that little forward shrug of an armless shoulder that Olwen could never see unmoved. But her eyes were on the window and on the glimpse of variegated Welsh landscape beyond.

"Since that is so," concluded Captain Ross in his most final tone, "will you allow me to offer my very best wishes to yourself and to Mr.

Ell----"

"No! Please don't!" protested Olwen quickly.

She felt that this misunderstanding had gone on long enough. Long enough. She turned from the window and looked straight----not at Captain Ross, that she couldn't do! but at a water-colour drawing of Carnarvon Castle on the wall. She said, "You see, I am not engaged or anything to Mr. Ellerton!"

And even as she said it, she knew what a change her words had made.

Without looking at him, she knew that Captain Ross's dark face had lighted up like a lantern into which a candle is put. She knew what he meant by that quick movement that he gave, as if rolling aside some weight that he'd been carrying. She knew, for sure and certain, why he'd come. Would he have cared about her being engaged to Mr. Ellerton if he hadn't wanted her himself? Of course he did want her....

Hadn't Golden said so? Wasn't that serene and lovely American always right?

Hadn't Madame Leroux thought so, too?

And hadn't she, Olwen herself, always known it too, in the very depths of her heart? Yes! Hadn't she always, always suspected his curt speech and his off-hand manner and his judgment of women?

Always!

A great and glowing delight filled the girl. For if he wanted her----oh, wasn't she his! Hadn't she been his all that time ago? All her denials of him since had been fibbing to herself, they had been making the best of things, they had been the hybernating sleep from which Love awakes as a giant refreshed! It had all been camouflage, and now there was no more need of it....

But even with this sweet and thrilling knowledge warm at her heart, the woman's Will-to-Prolong was strong within her, too.

She was a human little person enough and she had her dignity, she thought. Also she had to have her laugh--oh, quite a little one! over this man.

He said, "Then----" in a voice that there was no misunderstanding. His surliness had vanished like a mist. His eyes shone. He said, happily, "Then if you aren't engaged to him----!"

He seemed to think that she could take for granted what must follow.

But Olwen was mutinous. Had he come down here to propose? Let him do it!

she thought. She resolved that she would not be cheated out of a single word of it. "Then----" in itself was not going to count as a proposal.

"Then----," indeed!

"_Then----!_" Oh, dear no.

Immediately Olwen put on that look which is scarcely a look, but is for all that a defence past which no man's love-making may come. Immediately Captain Ross's own look changed to one of dashed and angry surprise. He had put out his arm. It dropped to his side while he watched this girl.

She sat down, her little figure almost lost in the embrace of a chair like a cretonne-covered bed. "Won't you sit down?" she said in the voice of a hostess, pointing to an opposite chair.

He did not move.