“I am certain you are making a mistake, Nadia,” said her godmother, with most unusual decision. “You have judged hastily and harshly, and you are wronging an excellent man. You should cultivate more faith in your fellow-creatures, and especially in your lover. Are you the only person in the world that can possibly be in the right? Allow Carlino to possess a conscience as well as yourself, I entreat you. You have been very hard upon him, and I feel that I must give you a warning. Am I to understand that for a whole month you have been cherishing these angry feelings against him, without even doing him the courtesy of asking whether you understood him rightly on the occasion to which you refer? You would not have treated your worst enemy in this way at one time. You may have misunderstood him; you may have refused to listen to what he had to say. Give him the chance of explaining the reasons for his action, and don’t press him too far. No man will put up with such treatment for ever.” “I want to make him care,” said Nadia, with fierce determination, and she went on deck, stifling in her heart the Princess’s warnings and the answering echo of her own conscience, which told her that the real reason for her quarrel with Caerleon was that he had disappointed her ambitious dreams for him. Emerging from the companion, she found the subject of her thoughts examining the distant coast-line with the aid of a glass borrowed from Captain Binks. Ordinarily he would have turned at once to greet her, and offered her the telescope, but now he took no notice of her approach. “Is that island very interesting?” she inquired, sarcastically. He did not answer, and she repeated the question with a little added sarcasm. “I beg your pardon,” he replied, coldly. “Were you speaking to me? I understood that I was not to be favoured with your conversation in future.” This was unexpected. Nadia looked at him in surprise, unaware that he was congratulating himself on the way in which she had addressed him. If there had been the slightest sign of softening in her manner, he could not have followed Cyril’s advice. “And you are satisfied that it should be so?” she asked, in blank dismay.