and went to the door with
Eleanor. It is hard to see how these things can be, but the cave-woman
and her whelpish brood are far behind us now, and Molly's mother was
cut to the dividing of the bone and the marrow. The two women went out
of the room and Molly stood alone with her father.

"I'm sorry, father," she said quietly. "I can't see that I should
change my way of life when it is perfectly honourable and proper, just
to gratify their silly pride. You must realise that I have to be
independent--I'm thirty years old and I haven't had a cent that I
didn't earn for more than ten years. I have never been so well and
so--so contented since I left college, really."

"Really?" Mr. Dickett echoed in dim amazement.

"Really. And mother never liked me--never. Oh, it's no use, father,
she never has. I can't waste any more of my life. I've found what
suits me--if I ever change, I'll let you know. I'll write you, anyway,
now and then. Good-bye, father. Shake hands."

And so it was over, and she jumped into the waiting "hack" ("it was
some comfort," Eleanor said, "that she wore that handsome broadcloth
and the feather-boa") and left them.

Perhaps you had rather leave her, yourself? Remember, she had dined
the brother of a baronet (and dined him well, too)! And George Farwell
had never earned her salary on _The Day_. Still, if you will stick by
her a little longer, you may feel a little more tolerant of her, and
that is much, in this critical civilisation of ours.

She leaned over the rail in her striped blue-and-white, and the first
mate leaned beside her. The sapphire sea raced along and the milky
froth flew off from their bow. The sun beat down on her dark head, and
there was a song in her heart--oh, there's no doubt of it, the girl was
disgracefully happy!

"A fine trip, won't it be?" she said contentedly, and drew a deep
breath, and washed her lungs clean of all the murk and cobwebs left
behind.

"Yes," said the first mate. "My last, by the way."

"Your last?" she repeated vaguely. "Your last?"

He nodded and swallowed in his throat. "Shall I tell you why?"

"Yes, tell me why," she said, and stared at the ship's boat, lashed to
the side.

"I've told you about myself," he blurted out roughly, "and my family,
and all that. It can't be helped--now. We look at things differently.
A man either wants to be an attache fooling around Baden, or he
doesn't. I don't, that's all. And I go bad in of