e other.

"Em!" Jenny shouted. "You're mad!"

"No, I'm not. Let me go! Let me go! He didn't want me to go. He wanted
you. Oh, I knew it. I was a fool to think he wanted me." Then, looking
with a sort of crazed disdain at Jenny, she said coolly, "Well, how is
it you're not ready? Don't you see your _substitute's_ waiting! Your
_land_ lover!"

"Land!" cried Alf. "Land! A sailor!" He flushed deeply, raising his arms
a little as if to ward off some further revelation. Jenny, desperate,
had her hands higher than her head, protestingly quelling the scene. In
a loud voice she checked them.

"Do ... not ... be ... fools!" she cried. "What's all the fuss about?
Simply because Alf's a born booby, standing there like a fool! I can't
go. I wouldn't go--even if he wanted me. But he wants you!" She again
seized Emmy, delaying once more Emmy's mechanical unfastening of the big
buttons of her coat. "Alf! Get your coat. Get her out of the house! I
never heard such rubbish! Alf, say ... tell her you meant her to go! Say
it wasn't me!"

"I shouldn't believe him," Emmy said, clearly. "I know I saw him holding
your hand."

Jenny laughed hysterically.

"What a fuss!" she exclaimed. "He's been doing palmistry--reading it.
All about ... what's going to happen to me. Wasn't it, Alf!"

Emmy disregarded her, watching Alf's too-transparent uneasiness.

"You always _were_ a little lying beast," she said, venomously. "A
trickster."

"You see?" Jenny said, defiantly to Alf. "What my own sister says?"

"So you were. With your _sailor_.... And playing the fool with Alf!"
Emmy's voice rose. "You always were.... I wonder Alf's never seen it
long ago...."

At this moment, with electrifying suddenness, Pa put down his tankard.

"What, ain't you gone yet?" he trembled. "I thought you was going out!"

"How did he know!" They all looked sharply at one another, sobered. So,
for one instant, they stood, incapable of giving any explanation to the
meekly inquiring old man who had disturbed their quarrel. Alf, so
helpless before the girls, was steeled by the interruption. He took two
steps towards Emmy.

"We'll have this out later on," he said. "Meanwhile ... Come on, Em!
It's just on eight. Come along, there's a good girl!" He stooped, took
her hands, and drew her to her feet. Then, with uncommon tenderness, he
re-buttoned her coat, and, with one arm about her, led Emmy to the door.
She pressed back, but it was against him, within the magic cir