lose beside her:

"Let me say this. Won't you? I'll promise never to say it again. Your
life is going to be all right. It's going to be quite wonderful--you'll
be tremendously happy. I'm sure of that. It's not only the way you
always--look--it's the way you always think and feel. It's everything
about you."

She had looked down at her hands for a moment. Now she looked up
suddenly.

"Thank you," she said smiling, in a way that told me to smile too. I
obeyed.

"I did that rather badly, didn't I," I said.

"No, you did that rather well. Especially the first part--I think I
liked that best of all--the part where you promised so solemnly that
you'd never do it again."

I went indignantly back to my chair.

"Do you know," I said, "I feel sometimes when I'm with you as though I
were being managed! Absolutely managed!"

"I should think you wouldn't like that," she replied. Her hands were
peacefully folded now and she looked at me serenely: "I should think
you'd rather manage yourself."

I took the hint. From, that day on, each time I came to see her, I
managed myself severely. And this apparently pleased her so much that
she seemed no longer the least afraid to let me know her as well as I
liked. Her father, too, when I met him now and then in the evenings, was
most kindly in his welcome. And as winter wore on, my hopes rose high.

But one evening, after Dillon had read my story about the Christmas
Boat, he gave me a bitter disappointment.

"I like it," he said, as he handed it back. "It's a fine dramatic piece
of work. But it's only a starter here. To get any idea of our problem
you'll have to go all over the harbor. When you've done that for a few
months more, and I get back from my trip abroad, I'll be glad to help
you."

"You're going abroad?" I asked abruptly.

"Next month," he said, "with Eleanore. She seems to think I need a
rest."

Back came the old feeling of emptiness. And gloomily at home that night
I wondered if it was because she knew she was leaving so soon that she
had been so intimate lately. How outrageous women are.

CHAPTER XIII

They sailed the middle of March.

It is easy to look back now and smile at my small desolate self as I was
in the months that followed. But at the time it was no smiling matter. I
was intensely wretched and I had a right to be, for I could see nothing
whatever ahead but the most dire uncertainties. Did Eleanore really care
for me? I didn't know. When