nd could not go on.

Sheldon looked the picture of despair.

"I confess my head is going around with it all," he said. "If you could
only be explicit."

"As explicit as you were when you told me that you would not permit me to
go to Guvutu?"

"But what's wrong with that?"

"But you have no right--no man has the right--to tell me what he will
permit or not permit. I'm too old to have a guardian, nor did I sail all
the way to the Solomons to find one."

"A gentleman is every woman's guardian."

"Well, I'm not every woman--that's all. Will you kindly allow me to send
your boy for Noa Noah? I wish him to launch the whale-boat. Or shall I
go myself for him?"

Both were now on their feet, she with flushed cheeks and angry eyes, he,
puzzled, vexed, and alarmed. The black boy stood like a statue--a plum-
black statue--taking no interest in the transactions of these
incomprehensible whites, but dreaming with calm eyes of a certain bush
village high on the jungle slopes of Malaita, with blue smoke curling up
from the grass houses against the gray background of an oncoming mountain-
squall.

"But you won't do anything so foolish--" he began.

"There you go again," she cried.

"I didn't mean it that way, and you know I didn't." He was speaking
slowly and gravely. "And that other thing, that not permitting--it is
only a manner of speaking. Of course I am not your guardian. You know
you can go to Guvutu if you want to"--"or to the devil," he was almost
tempted to add. "Only, I should deeply regret it, that is all. And I am
very sorry that I should have said anything that hurt you. Remember, I
am an Englishman."

Joan smiled and sat down again.

"Perhaps I have been hasty," she admitted. "You see, I am intolerant of
restraint. If you only knew how I have been compelled to fight for my
freedom. It is a sore point with me, this being told what I am to do or
not do by you self-constituted lords of creation.-Viaburi I You stop
along kitchen. No bring 'm Noa Noah.--And now, Mr. Sheldon, what am I to
do? You don't want me here, and there doesn't seem to be any place for
me to go."

"That is unfair. Your being wrecked here has been a godsend to me. I
was very lonely and very sick. I really am not certain whether or not I
should have pulled through had you not happened along. But that is not
the point. Personally, purely selfishly personally, I should be sorry to
see you go. But I am not considering