Jarman did not laugh.  “If you had told me,” he said gravely, “I could have kept watch for you with my glass while you were there.  I could see further than you.”

“Tould you see us?” asked the little girl, with hopeful vivacity.

“No!” said Jarman, with masterly evasion.  “There are little sandhills between this and the beach.”

“Then how tould other people see us?” persisted the child.

Jarman could see that the older girl was evidently embarrassed, and changed the subject.  “I sometimes go out,” he said, “when I can see there are no vessels in sight, and I take ray glass with me.  I can always get back in time to make signals.  I thought, in fact,” he said, glancing at Cara’s brightening face, “that I might get as far as your house on the shore some day.”  To his surprise, her embarrassment suddenly seemed to increase, although she had looked relieved before, and she did not reply.  After a moment she said abruptly:—­

“Did you ever see the sea-lions?”

“No,” said Jarman.

“Not the big ones on Seal Rock, beyond the cliffs?” continued the girl, in real astonishment.

“No,” repeated Jarman.  “I never walked in that direction.”  He vaguely remembered that they were a curiosity which sometimes attracted parties thither, and for that reason he had avoided the spot.

“Why, I have sailed all around the rock in father’s boat,” continued Cara, with importance.  “That’s the best way to see ’em, and folks from Frisco sometimes takes a sail out there just on purpose,—­it’s too sandy to walk or drive there.  But it’s only a step from here.  Look here!” she said suddenly, and frankly opening her fine eyes upon him.  “I’m going to take Lucy there to-morrow, and I’ll show you.”  Jarman felt his cheeks flush quickly with a pleasure that embarrassed him.  “It won’t take long,” added Cara, mistaking his momentary hesitation, “and you can leave your telegraph alone.  Nobody will be there, so no one will see you and nobody know it.”

He would have gone then, anyway, he knew, yet in his absurd self-consciousness he was glad that her last suggestion had relieved him of a sense of reckless compliance.  He assented eagerly, when with a wave of her hand, a flash of her white teeth, and the same abruptness she had shown at their last parting, she caught Lucy by the arm and darted away in a romping race to her dwelling.  Jarman started after her.  He had not wanted to go to her father’s house particularly, but why was she evidently as averse to it?  With the subtle pleasure that this admission gave him there was a faint stirring of suspicion.