Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/173

 words vocally to “Oh, good morning, Captain Ponsonby! How you startled me! I was deep in a story.”

“A love story, I ’ll be bound,” simpered Ponsonby with a grimace intended to be tender but which would in fact have been thoroughly terrifying to an inexperienced person. “I want to propose—”

“Remember I ’m a married woman,” shot back Lily. “It ’s not customary—is it—to be so formal in such cases.”

Ponsonby, who was a much-married man with five ill-assorted offspring, blushed furiously.

“I—I—I,” he stammered.

“You—you—you are a very wicked person!” interrupted Lily, shaking her head at him. “What was it you wanted to propose?”

The Captain, thus relieved, for he was a ponderous flirt and would have floundered for an hour if left to himself, grinned a fatuous purple grin.

“I want your bright eyes to help me do some detective work!” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “There may be a criminal on board!”

Under the veil of her golden smile Lily $10$