e harbor. So far, none of the
splashing had wet me but I now came in for a light sprinkle.

"Were you not on board that boat yesterday?" Juno inquired; and to see
her look at me you might have gathered that I was suspected of sinking
the vessel.

"A most delightful occasion!" I exclaimed, filling my face with a bright
blankness.

"Isn't he awful to speak that way about Sunday!" said the up-country
bride.

This was a chance for the poetess, and she took it. "To me," she mused,
"every day seems fraught with an equal holiness."

"But I should think," observed the Briton, "that you could knock off a
hymn better on Sundays."

All this while Juno was looking at me, and I knew it, and therefore I
ate my food in a kindly sort of unconscious way, until she fired another
shot at me. "There is an absurd report that somebody fell overboard."

"Dear me!" I laughed. "So that is what it has grown to already! I did go
out on the boat boom, and I did drop off--but into a boat."

At this confession of mine the up-country bride became extraordinarily
arch on the subject of the well-known hospitality of steam yachts, and
for this I was honestly grateful to her; but Juno brooded still. "I hope
there is nothing wrong," she said solemnly.

Feeling that silence at this point would not be golden, I went into it
with spirit I told them of our charming party, of General Rieppe's
rich store of quotations, of the strict discipline on board the
well-appointed Hermana, of the great beauty of Hortense, and her evident
happiness when her lover was by her side. This talk of mine turned off
any curiosity or suspicion which the rest of the company may have begun
to entertain; but upon Juno I think it made scant impression, save
causing her to set me down as an imbecile. For there was Doctor
Beaugarcon when we came into the sitting-room, who told us before any
one could even say "How-do-you-do," that Miss Hortense Rieppe had broken
her engagement with John Mayrant, and that he had it from Mrs. Cornerly,
whom he was visiting professionally. I caught the pitying look which
Juno threw at me at this news, and I was happy to have acquitted myself
so creditably in the manipulation of my secret: nobody asked me any more
questions!

There is almost nothing else to tell you of how the splashes broke
on Kings Port. Before the day when I was obliged to call in Doctor
Beaugarcon's professional services (quite a sharp attack put me to bed
for half a week)