--of course, I know he told me exactly
what he believes himself."

"Yes, you would take the lad's word, of course." This with a slight
but significant emphasis of which he was perhaps unconscious.
"Then I suppose you consider that he was inveigled too?"

"I am not required to consider Mr. Vane's status at all," I replied
with dignity. "It is my aunt whom I wish to protect." And
suddenly to my dismay my voice grew husky. I had to turn my head
aside and blink hard at the sea. I seemed to be encountering
fearful and unexpected odds in my endeavor to rescue Aunt Jane.

He stood looking down at me--he was a big man, though of lesser
height than the superb Cuthbert--in a way I couldn't quite
understand. And what I don't understand always makes me
uncomfortable.

"Very well," he said after a pause. "Maybe your opportunity will
come. It would be a pity indeed if Miss Harding were to require no
protecting and a young lady here with such a good will to it. But
if you will take the suggestion of a man of rather broader
experience than your own, you will wait until the occasion arises.
It is bad generalship, really, to waste your ammunition like this."

"I dare say I am not a master of strategy," I cried, furious at
myself for my moment of weakness and at him for the softening tone
which had crept into his voice. "I am merely--honest. And when I
see Aunt Jane hypnotized--by this Violet person--"

"And indeed I have seen no reason to think that Miss
Higglesby-Browne is not a most excellent lady," interrupted Mr.
Shaw stiffly. "And let me say this, Miss Harding: here we are all
together, whether we wish to be or no, and for six weeks or more on
the island we shall see no faces but our own. Are we to be divided
from the beginning by quarrels? Are maybe even the men of us to be
set by the ears through the bickering of women?"

Like the nick of a whip came the certainty that he was thinking of
the Honorable Cuthbert, and that I was the rock on which their
David-and-Jonathan friendship might split. Otherwise I suppose
Miss Higglesby-Browne and I might have clawed each other forever
without interference from him.

"Really," I said with--I hope--well-simulated scorn, "since I am
quite alone against half a dozen of you, I should think you could
count on putting down any rebellion on my part very easily. I
repeat, I had no other object in coming along--though I was really
_kidnaped_ along--than to look after my aunt