"If she did not tell you--" began the Commandant, but Sir Caesar interrupted him impatiently. "Tell me? Devil a bit of it, and that's partly why I'm here. Vanished like a witch, begad, while I was turning to ring the bell! And where she went or where she came from are mysteries alike to me." "Why, then," the Commandant pursued, in a steady musing voice, "it seems to follow that, even if I knew, I have not her permission to tell." The Lord Proprietor uncrossed and recrossed his legs irritably. "Come, come, Vigoureux, this will hardly do. Will it, now? I put it to you as a man of the world. No doubt it's all innocent enough, but folks will talk. And, after all, I'm responsible for any--er--scandal affecting the Islands. Hey?" The Commandant rose with a sudden flush on his face. "Scandal, Sir Caesar? Oh, to be sure, I cannot understand you." "Tut-tut!" The Lord Proprietor smiled. "Of course, we know there's nothing in it. A young lady--youngish, at least--and you old enough to be her father. But, all the same, tongues will wag." "And they have been wagging?" The Commandant, after a short turn across the room and back, stood over him, his hands crossed under his coat tails. "But yours, sir, is the only one that has dared to wag in my presence." "Sir!" The Lord Proprietor jumped to his feet. "You have put many humiliations upon me, Sir Caesar; and because they affected me only, I have endured them. But in this you go too far." The Lord Proprietor, on the verge of an angry retort, checked himself, with a short laugh. "I refuse to lose my temper with you," said he. "You are unreasonable. You misconceive me as imputing scandal when, as a matter of fact, I was trying to assure you that I rejected the imputation. For me, the disparity in age alone----" The Commandant, with a wave of his hand to the door, turned away wearily. "I merely thought it right to warn you," pursued Sir Caesar, taking heart of grace as his opponent appeared to weaken, "that others may be less charitable. And they look to me. I think--I really think--you might consider the delicacy of my position; that I am--er--ultimately responsible for the good name of these Islands." But here he paused with a start; for the Commandant had wheeled about suddenly, and stood over him, and the Commandant's eyes were dangerous.