easy
to read--before she retired, leaving Tibe to me. Instead of coming up on
deck as she had evidently intended to do, she vanished, and a head
exquisitely hatted and blue-veiled appeared in place of hers.

A moment later the tiny lady of the arbor, transformed into Parisian
elegance by an effective white yachting costume, with a coquettish blue
yachting-cap on her gray hair, the goggling effect of the glasses
softened by the floating folds of azure chiffon, arrived to succor her
beloved. She started slightly, staring at me through veil and
spectacles, and I deduced that whatever Starr had told his "aunt" about
the skipper, it had not prepared her to meet the man of the arbor. Those
hidden eyes recognized me, and took in the situation.

Under their fire I realized that the success of my adventure might
largely depend upon the chaperon; and if, suspecting something more than
met her gaze, she should strike an attitude of disapproval, she could
prejudice the girls against the skipper, and so manoeuver that he had
his trouble for his pains.

With this danger ahead, I redoubled my attentions to Tiberius; but it
was fortunate for me that the doubts he entertained of the man in the
arbor were chased away by gratitude for the man on the boat. If it had
not been so, such is the primitive sincerity of dog kind--especially
bulldog kind--no bribe in my power to offer could have induced him to
dissimulate. I knew this, and trembled; but Tibe, being an animal of
parts, was not long in comprehending that the hand on his collar meant
well by him. He deigned to fawn, and meeting his glance at close
quarters, I read his dog-soul through the brook-brown depths of the
clear eyes. After that moment, in which we came to a full understanding
one of the other, once and for all, I knew that Tibe's wrinkled mask,
his terrible mouth, and the ferocious tusks standing up like two
stalagmites in the black, protruding under jaw, disguised a nature
almost too amiable and confiding for a world of hypocrites. Tragic fate,
to seem in the shallow eyes of strangers a monster of evil from whom to
flee, while your warm heart, bursting with love and kindness, sends you
chasing those who avoid you, eager to demonstrate affection! Such a fate
is destined to be Tibe's, so long as he may live; but in this first
instant of our real acquaintance he felt that I at least saw through his
disguise; and under the nose and spectacles of his mistress he sealed
our f