"What will auntie say?" she sighed at last.
"What will you say?" I replied.
"Oh, brute, you shall not know! I must have some manner of revenge
against a ruffian who has taken advantage of me while I was in his
power!"
"Ah, heartless jade!"
"--So you shall wait until we are ashore. I will give you sealed
orders----"
"When?"
"Now. And you shall open them at your friend's house--as soon as we
are all settled and straightened after leaving the boat--as soon
as----"
"It looks as though it were as soon as you please, not when I please."
"Harry, it is my revenge for the indignities you have heaped on me. Do
you think a girl will submit to that meekly--to be browbeaten, abused,
endangered as I have been! No, sir--sealed orders or none. I have only
owned I loved you. So many girls have been mistaken about things
when--when the moon, or a desert island or--or something has bewitched
them. But I haven't said I would marry you, have I, ever?"
"No. I don't care about that so much as the other; but I care a very,
very great deal about it, too. You, too, are cruel. You are a
heartless jade."
"And you have been a cruel and ruthless pirate."
"Tell me now!"
"No." And she evaded me, and gained the door. "I must go. Oh, it's all
a ruin now--Auntie'll be furious. And what shall I say?"
"Give her sealed orders, and my love! And when do I get mine?"
"In five minutes."
She was gone.... And after some moments, rapt as I was at her late
presence, which still seemed to fill the room like the fragrance, like
the fragrance of her hair which still lingered in my senses, I looked
about, sighing for that she was gone. Then I noted that our friend
Partial had gone with her. "Fie! Partial, after all, you loved her
more!" I said to myself.
But in a few moments I heard a faint sound at my door. I opened. There
stood Partial in the dusk, gravely wagging his tail, looking at me
without moving his head. And I saw that he held daintily in his mouth
a dainty note, addressed to me in the same handwriting as that on the
note I had sent out from the heartless jade to yon varlet. And it was
sealed, and marked with instructions for its opening.... "When You
Two Varlets Meet." No more.
"Peterson," said I, advancing to the forward deck, where I found him
smoking, "I've been getting up some correspondence, since we'll be
ashore by to-morrow noon----"
"--I don't know as to that, Mr. Harry."
"Well, I know about it. So, tell Williams that, even if he has to work
all night, we must be moving as soon as it's light enough to see. I've
got a very important message----"