heavens, I didn't say I detested it! What I shrugged about was
my own dreary lack of it."

"Bachelors do not require much."

"That's true; but I no longer desire to remain a bachelor." The very
thing that saved him was the added laughter, forced, miserably forced.
Fool! The words had slipped without his thinking.

"Gracious! That sounds horribly like a proposal." She beamed upon him
merrily.

And his heart sank, for he had been earnest enough, for all his
blunder. Manlike, he did not grasp the fact that under the
circumstance merriment was all she could offer him, if she would save
him from his own stupidity.

"But I do hate money," she reaffirmed.

"I shouldn't. Think of what it brings."

"I do; begging letters, impostures, battle-scarred titles, humbugging
shop-keepers, and perhaps one honest friend in a thousand. And if I
married a title, what equivalent would I get for my money, to put it
brutally? A chateau, which I should have to patch up, and tolerance
from my husband's noble friends. Not an engaging prospect."

She threw a handful of biscuit to the gulls, and there was fighting and
screaming almost in touch of the hands. Then of a sudden the red rim
of the sun vanished behind the settling landscape, and all the grim
loneliness of the sea rose up to greet them.

"It is lonely; let us go and prepare for dinner. Look!" pointing to a
bright star far down the east. "And Corsica lies that way."

"And also madness!" was his thought.

"Oh, it seems not quite true that we are all going a-venturing as they
do in the story-books. The others think we are just going to Funchal.
Remember, you must not tell. Think of it; a real treasure, every franc
of which must tell a story of its own; love, heroism and devotion."

"Beautiful! But there must be a rescuing of princesses and fighting
and all that. I choose the part of remaining by the princess."

"It is yours." She tilted back her head and breathed and breathed.
She knew the love of living.

"Lucky we are all good sailors," he said. "There will be a fair sea on
all night. But how well she rides!"

"I love every beam and bolt of her."

Shoulder to shoulder they bore forward to the companionway, and
immediately the door banged after them.

Breitmann came out from behind the funnel and walked the deck for a
time. He had studied the two from his shelter. What were they saying?
Oh, Fitzgerald was clever and strong and good to look at, but