the trough of the waves where we might expect a few wobbly
minutes until the sailors could work in a new line. There was no danger
and I reassured her at once, but she merely asked:

"Was my father on deck?"

"I didn't look," I answered, wondering why she thought I knew.

"Won't you see?" Her patience was becoming exhausted.

"I'm crazy to. But first let me help you back--you can't make it
alone!"

"Oh, yes, I can," she murmured. "I always make things alone!"

I tried to fathom the meaning of this, but gave it up and started to go
on deck. If I could take her father off to one side and explain, well
and good. He would perhaps sympathize with my mistake when he understood
that it was partially the result of a desire to fill Monsieur with
spirits. Considering this, I spoiled everything by asking:

"What does he look like?"

"My father?" she gasped, in a wondering way.

"No--yes--certainly not! I mean--oh, this is intolerable! I don't know
your father, never saw him in my life--unless he was the one with you
last night when you drove me frantic with that ball of paper trick! But
what you did has nothing to do with my being here. I've not wilfully
followed. A stupid boatman mistook your yacht for my own when I was--I
mean to say, when I was too engrossed with the memory of you to notice
his mistake."

From alarm her look gave way to wonderment, then almost to mirth. It was
a hard place for a girl to be in, and I expected her to leave me now,
find the old chap and promptly have me hanged to a yard-arm. The fact
that there are no yard-arms on schooner yachts made no difference. And I
do believe she was considering that when a sailor passed us, looking
enough like Tommy to have been his twin brother.

"Jack," she said to him, "tell Mr. Graham to come below!"

The fellow saluted and left, and I stared at her in surprise, saying:

"Then my name can't seem very odd to you, Miss Graham!"

She was regarding me as though trying to discover what kind of a species
I was that had got on her father's yacht, when the sailor came back
followed by a husky brute in uniform. Intuitively I stiffened to meet
the crisis, but even at this eleventh hour a respite came.

"He ain't aboard," the other Jack whispered, and the captain--for the
burly one was only the captain, after all--saluted, saying:

"I've just now found out, ma'am, he ain't aboard!"

"Not aboard? What do you mean?"

"After bringing you on last night he went as