"gp24w10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Gilbert)

popular, that they say I'm clever, and that I'm a tall, good-looking
girl?"

She looked down at him, and said it with such a delightful naivete,
through which a tone of raillery ran, that it did not sound as it may
read. She knew her full value, but no one had ever accused her of
vanity--she was simply the most charming, outspoken girl in the biggest
city of Australia.

"Yes, I know all that," he replied with an honest laugh. "When you were
a little child,--according to your mother, and were told you were not
good, you said: 'No, I'm not good--I'm only beautiful.'"

Dibbs had a ready tongue, and nothing else he said at the moment could
have had so good an effect. She laughed softly and merrily. "You have
awkward little corners in your talk at times. I wonder they didn't
reduce you at the court-martial. You were rather keen with your words
once or twice there."

A faint flush ran over Dibbs's face, but he smiled through it, and didn't
give away an inch of self-possession. "If the board had been women, I'd
have been reduced right enough--women don't go by evidence, but by their
feelings; they don't know what justice really is, though by nature
they've some undisciplined generosity."

"There again you are foolish. I'm a woman. Now why do you say such
things to me, especially when--when you are aspiring! Properly, I ought
to punish you. But why did you say those sharp things at your trial?
They probably told against you."

"I said them because I felt them, and I hate flummery and thick-
headedness. I was as respectful as I could be; but there were things
about the trial I didn't like--irregular things, which the Admiral
himself, who knows his business, set right."

"I remember the Admiral said there were points about the case that he
couldn't quite understand, but that they could only go by such testimony
as they had."

"Exactly," he said sententiously.

She wheeled softly on him, and looked him full in the eyes. "What other
testimony was there to offer?"

"We are getting a long way from our starting-point," he answered
evasively. "We were talking of a more serious matter."

"But a matter with which this very thing has to do, Neddie Dibbs.
There's a mystery somewhere. I've asked Archie; but he won't say a word
about it, except that he doesn't think you were to blame."