For Set-back Number Three, had he not just heard half a sentence (before a door closed), in a shrill girlish voice, about a "_sailor_ young man"? _Damn_ young Ellerton! His anger against the sailor gave the send-off to the very first sentence that he addressed to the girl. With a forward jerk of his head he brought out the startling abrupt remark, "Look, Miss Howel-Jones, don't you think this has gone on long enough?" CHAPTER XV THE CHARM ACKNOWLEDGED "'Even he that flies shall follow for thy sake-- Shall kiss that would not kiss thee' (yea, kiss me), 'When thou wouldst not' (when I would not kiss thee!)" Swinburne. Olwen's bright eyes opened in real astonishment. Here was a bewildering sex! "_Long enough_," it said. "_Hasn't this been going on long enough._" ... When----well, whose was the fault that anything had been _long_? Or did Captain Ross mean that? Or what did he mean? "I don't know what you mean," she confessed, standing there all at sea. Then she put out a hand to the draperies of that door. Bewilderment gave place for the moment to a stronger impulse; hospitality. The little Welshwoman must feed her guest. "Do come into the dining-room," she begged, "and have some tea first, anyhow----" But Captain Ross stood rock-like. He had seen that rookery of black heads through the dining-room window. "Thanks; I had tea in the train," he said curtly. "I came to ask you something, and I'd like to know about it right now." "But----oh----very well," murmured Olwen. "It's this," said Captain Ross, peremptorily, "are you or are you not engaged to that----to Ellerton?" Olwen had known her Chief sharp and abrupt before. For weeks she'd never known him anything else. This was his sharpest yet. She was intimidated.... Then suddenly that went, and she had all the boldness of the kitten turning to face the big dog. "Engaged?" she repeated. "What do you mean?" "What do I mean? Engaged to be married." Captain Ross explained. "May I have a straight answer to that, please?" There was a pause. Perhaps Olwen was sorting her thoughts. She smiled, at first uncertainly. Then, also uncertainly, she said, "But surely, Captain Ross, you didn't come down from London specially to ask me that?" With ominous patience Captain Ross nodded that sleek, black, Tom-cat head of his, almost as if to some old enemy he had expected to see cropping up at some time. "Why, of course, it's a lot to ask of a woman, a plain answer to a plain question. Right away, that is. But perhaps in haff a minute or so?" he suggested, adding, at once, "Are you engaged to him or are you not? Yes or no?" Olwen, wondering at her own boldness, parried with, "If--if it _wasn't_ worth coming down specially for, h-have you the right to ask me?" "Say I came down specially, then," Captain Ross conceded reluctantly. "Now are you going to tell me?" "Who said," asked Olwen, with a glance out of the window, "that there was anything to tell?"