“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
which detailed the matrimonial eccentricities of the queen bee.
“Ah!” the Captain remarked teasingly with a peculiar and meaning smile. “That would be telling! However, I ’ll say this much, that you would be particularly interested in the case if you knew who the man was and whom he had wronged.”
“You don’t mean to suggest that I am personally acquainted with this—criminal!” Lily flashed with simulated indignation.
Ponsonby smiled again.
“Perhaps,” he said significantly.
Lily took up her magazine.
“I don’t think you are at all nice,” she pouted. “First you ask me to help find a criminal for you,—and then it turns out that you imagine he or she is one of my personal friends. Anyhow, you don’t think I’d turn traitor, do you? Captain Ponsonby, even if there were a murderer on board, and I knew him—I ’d never tell. I won’t be a bloodhound, a hawk or a trained panther for you or anybody else.”
All the time she was furiously raging inside at Micky who had thus played her false. And153
