ndiscretion.

"_Am_ I red-nosed?"

"You are. At least, you will be when you cry again."

"I'll cry straight off this minute, if you don't promise to take it all
back."

"I'll promise--the instant we touch shore."

There was a gravity in his tone that banished her mischief.

"Perhaps I don't really want you to take it back," she said wistfully.

"Ah, but with firm earth under our feet once more, and realities all
around us--"

"There's Guenn Oaks. That's on the very borders of Elfland. Don't you
think Bertie looks like a Pixie?"

"I'm not going to Guenn Oaks."

"Not if I say my very prettiest 'please'?"

From those pleading lips and eyes the Tyro turned away. Instantly there
was a piercing squeak of greeting from across the narrow strip of water.

"It's the Beatific Baby!" cried Little Miss Grouch. "How did he ever get
there? Oh! Oh!! Get him, some one!"

Near an opening at the rail of the ship some of the third-class luggage
had been left. Upon this the Pride of the Steerage had clambered and was
there perilously balancing, while he waved his hands at his departing
friends. There was a deeper-toned answering cry to Little Miss Grouch's
appeal, as the mother, leaping to the rail, ran swiftly along it,
seized and hurled her child back, and, with the effort, plunged
overboard herself.

By the time she had touched the water, the Tyro's overcoat and coat were
on the deck and his hands on the rail.

"Take that life-preserver," he said, with swift quietness to Little Miss
Grouch. "As soon as you see me get her, throw it as far beyond us as you
can. You understand? Beyond. There she is. _Damn!!_"

For Little Miss Grouch's arms had closed desperately around his
shoulders. With his wrestler's knowledge, he could have broken that hold
in a second's fraction, but that would have been to fling her against
the rail, possibly over it. He twisted until his face almost touched
hers.

"Let me go!"

In all her pampered life Miss Cecily Wayne had never before been
addressed in that tone or anything remotely resembling it, by man,
woman, or child. Her grip relaxed. She shrank back, appalled.

For perhaps a second she had checked him, and in that second the huddle
of blue had drifted almost abreast. It was an easy leap from where the
Tyro stood. One foot was on the rail, when he staggered aside from an
impact very different from the feminine assault. Mr. Henry Clay Wayne
had turned from an absorbing conversation with