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Dibbs, R.N.
by
“We are getting a long way from our starting-point,” he answered evasively. “We were talking of a more serious matter.”
“But a matter with which this very thing has to do, Neddie Dibbs. There’s a mystery somewhere. I’ve asked Archie; but he won’t say a word about it, except that he doesn’t think you were to blame.”
“Your brother is a cautious fellow.” Then, hurriedly: “He is quite right to express no opinion as to any mystery. Least said soonest mended.”
“You mean that it is proper not to discuss professional matters in society?”
“That’s it.” A change had passed over Dibbs’s face–it was slightly paler, but his voice was genial and inconsequential.
“Come and sit down at the Point,” she said.
They went to a cliff which ran out from one corner of the garden, and sat down on a bench. Before them stretched the harbour, dotted with sails; men-of-war lay at anchor, among them the little Ruby, Commander Dibbs’s cruiser. Pleasure-steamers went hurrying along to many shady harbours; a tall-masted schooner rode grandly in between the Heads, balanced with foam; and a beach beneath them shone like opal: it was a handsome sight.
For a time they were silent. At last he said: “I know I haven’t much to recommend me. I’m a little beggar–nothing to look at; I’m pretty poor; I’ve had no influence to push me on; and just at the critical point in my career–when I was expecting promotion–I get this set-back, and lose your good opinion, which is more to me, though I say it bluntly like a sailor, than the praise of all the Lords of the Admiralty, if it could be got. You see, I always was ambitious; I was certain I’d be a captain; I swore I’d be an admiral one day; and I fell in love with the best girl in the world, and said I’d not give up thinking I would marry her until and unless I saw her wearing another man’s name–and I don’t know that I should even then.”
“Now that sounds complicated–or wicked,” she said, her face turned away from him.
“Believe me, it is not complicated; and men marry widows sometimes.”
“You are shocking,” she said, turning on him with a flush to her cheek and an angry glitter in her eye. “How dare you speak so cold-bloodedly and thoughtlessly?”
“I am not cold-blooded or thoughtless, nor yet shocking. I only speak what is in my mind with my usual crudeness. I know it sounds insolent of me, but, after all, it is only being bold with the woman for whom–half-disgraced, insignificant, but unquenchable fellow as I am–I’d do as much as, and, maybe, dare more for than any one of the men who would marry her if they could.”
“I like ambitious men,” she said relenting, and meditatively pushing the grass with her tennis-racket; “but ambition isn’t everything, is it? There must be some kind of fulfilment to turn it into capital, as it were. Don’t let me hurt your feelings, but you haven’t done a great deal yet, have you?”
“No, I haven’t. There must be occasion. The chance to do something big may start up any time, however. You never can tell when things will come your way. You’ve got to be ready, that’s all.”
“You are very confident.”
“You’ll call me a prig directly, perhaps, but I can’t help that. I’ve said things to you that I’ve never said to any one in the world, and I don’t regret saying them.”
She looked at him earnestly. She had never been made love to in this fashion. There was no sentimentalism in it, only straightforward feeling, forceful, yet gentle. She knew he was aware that the Admiral of his squadron had paid, and was paying, court to her; that a titled aide-de-camp at Government House was conspicuously attentive; that one of the richest squatters in the country was ready to make astonishing settlements at any moment; and that there was not a young man of note acquainted with her who did not offer her gallant service-in the ball-room. She smiled as she thought of it. He was certainly not large, but no finer head was ever set on a man’s shoulders, powerful, strongly outlined, nobly balanced. The eyes were everywhere; searching, indomitable, kind. It was a head for a sculptor. Ambition became it well. She had studied that head from every stand-point, and had had the keenest delight in talking to the man. But, as he said, that was two years before, and he had had bad luck since then.