“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
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
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