o myself. But I want you to listen to me."

His voice had grown softer. She turned her head and looked at him. He
was much taller than she was, and in his grey tweed suit, his head a
little thrown back, his straw hat clasped in his hands behind him, his
clear grey eyes full of serious purpose, he was certainly not an
unattractive figure to look upon. Unconsciously she found herself
comparing him once more with the men of her world, found herself
realising, even against her will, the charm of his naive and dogged
honesty, his youth, his tenacity of purpose. She had never been made
love to like this before.

"Please listen," he begged. "I am afraid that your father must be in a
tearing rage by now, but it can't be helped. He is out there and he
hasn't got an earthly chance of getting back until I give the word.
We've got plenty of time to reach Nice before he can land. I just want
you to realise, Fedora, that you are your own mistress. You can make or
spoil your own life. No one else has any right to interfere. Have you
ever seen any one yet, back in your own country, amongst your own
people, whom you really felt that you cared for--who you really believed
would be willing to lay down his life to make you happy?"

"No," she confessed simply, "I do not know that I have. Our men are not
like that."

"It is because," he went on, "there is no one back there who cares as I
do. I have spent some years of my life looking--quite unconsciously, but
looking all the same--for some one like you. Now I have found you I am
glad I have waited. There couldn't be any one else. There never could
be, Fedora. I love you just in the way a man does love once in his life,
if he's lucky. It's a queer sort of feeling, you know," he continued,
leaning a little towards her. "It makes me quite sure that I could make
you happy. It makes me quite sure that if you'll give me your hand and
trust me, and leave everything to me, you'll have just the things in
life that women want. Won't you be brave, Fedora? There are some things
to break through, I know, but they don't amount to much--they don't,
really. And I love you, you know. You can't imagine yet what a wonderful
difference that makes. You'll find out and you'll be glad."

She stood quite still. Her eyes were still fixed seawards, but she was
looking beyond the yacht, now, to the dim line where sky and sea seemed
to meet. The vision of her past days seemed to be drawn out before her,
a little m