"How silly people can be upon occasion!" he thought. "How dare he get up a flirtation with Mrs. West's niece? She is wholly out of his sphere. Once she gets to England, I dare swear he will never be permitted to lay eyes on her again. He shall not make a fool of the child. She is but a child, and ignorant of those laws of caste that will trammel Mrs. West's niece in England. I will speak to him." CHAPTER XII. That night when the girl had gone to her state-room, and the two men were alone on deck smoking their cigars in the soft spring moonlight, Lancaster said, rather diffidently: "Oh, I say, De Vere, weren't you going the pace rather strong this evening?" "Eh?" said the lieutenant. "I say you oughtn't to try to flirt with little Leonora West. You were saying no end of soft things to her this evening. It isn't right. She's in my care, and I can't see her harmed without a word." "Harmed? Why, what the deuce are you hinting at, Lancaster?" his friend demanded, hotly. "Nothing to make you fly into a temper, Harry," Lancaster answered, gravely. "Nothing but what is done every day by idle, rich men--winning an innocent, fresh young heart in a careless flirtation, and then leaving it to break." De Vere dropped his fine Havana into the waves and looked around. "Look here, Lancaster," he said, "tell me one thing. Do you want Miss West for yourself?" "I don't understand you," haughtily, with a hot flush mounting to his brow. "I mean you are warning me off because you're in love with the little thing yourself? Do you want to win her--to make her my lady?" "What then?" inquired Lancaster, moodily. "Why, then, I only want an equal chance with you, that's all--a fair field and no favor." They gazed at each other in silence a moment. Lancaster said then, with something like surprise: "Are you in earnest?" "Never more so in my life." "Have you remembered that your family will consider it a _mésalliance_?" "I am independent of my family. I have ten thousand a year of my own, and am the heir to a baronetcy." "But you are rash, De Vere. You never saw Leonora West until to-day. What do you know of her?" "I know that she is the fairest, most fascinating creature I ever met, and that she has carried my heart by storm. I know that if she is to be won by mortal man, that man shall be Harry De Vere!" cried the young soldier, enthusiastically. There was silence again. The great ship rose and fell with the heaving of the waves, and it seemed to Lancaster that its labored efforts were like the throbbing of a heart in pain. What was the matter with him? He shook off angrily the trance that held him. "Since you mean so well, I wish you success," he said. "Thanks, old fellow. I thought at first--" said De Vere, then paused. "Thought--what?" impatiently. "That you were--jealous, that you wanted her for yourself." "Pshaw! My future is already cut and dried," bitterly.