rose stare. "Why don't you ever put your
shoulder to the wheel, Lanyard? Why leave it all to me? Come on; be a
sport, cut a caper, crack a wheeze, do something to get a giggle!"

"But I am by no means sure you do not laugh at me too much, as it is."

"Rot!... Tell you what." Phinuit sat up with a gleaming eye of
inspiration. "You can entertain mademoiselle and me no end, if you
like. Spill the glad tidings."

"Glad tidings?"

"Now don't monkey with the eyebrows--_please!_ It gives me the
willies... I merely mean to point out, to-day's the day you promised to
come through with the awful decision. And there's no use waiting for
Monk to join us; he's too much worried about his nice little ship. Tell
mademoiselle and me now."

Lanyard shook his head, smiling. "But the time I set was when we made
our landfall."

"Well, what's the matter with Martha's Vineyard over there? You could
see if it was a clear day."

"But it is not a clear day."

"Suppose it gets thicker, a sure-enough fog? We may not see land before
midnight."

"Then till midnight we must wait. No, Monsieur Phinuit, I will not be
hurried. I have been thinking, I am still thinking, and there is still
much to be said before I can come to any decision that will be fair to
you, mademoiselle, the captain on the one hand, myself on the other."

"But at midnight, if the skipper's promise holds good, we'll be going
ashore."

"The objection is well taken. My answer will be communicated when we
see land or at eleven o'clock to-night, whichever is the earlier
event."

Some further effort at either persuasion or impudence--nobody but
Phinuit ever knew which--was drowned out by the first heart-broken
bellow of the whistle sounding the fog signal.

Liane Delorme bounded out of her chair, clapping hands to ears, and
uttered an unheard cry of protest; and when, the noise suspending
temporarily, she learned that it was to be repeated at intervals of two
minutes as long as the fog lasted and the yacht was under way, she flung
up piteous hands to an uncompassionate heaven and fled to her stateroom,
slamming the door as if she thought thereby to shut out the offending din.

One fancied something inhumanly derisive in the prolonged hoot which
replied.

Rather than languish under the burden of Mr. Phinuit's spirited
conversation for the rest of the afternoon, Lanyard imitated Liane's
example, and wasted the next hour and a half flat on his bed, with eyes
closed but