and gay parrakeets, cocoanuts and
mangosteens--and let the world go hang!"

She did not reply, but she moved a little away. He waited for a minute,
then laughed softly.

"My dear young lady, this is the interlude you've always been longing for.
Fate has popped you out of the normal for a few days, and presently she'll
pop you back into it. Some day you'll marry and have children; you'll sink
into the rut of monotony again and not be conscious of it. On winter
nights, before the fire, when the children have been put to bed, your man
buried behind his evening paper, you will recall Slue-Foot and the
interlude and be happy over it. You'll hug and cuddle it to your heart
secretly. A poignant craving in your life had been satisfied. Kidnapped by
pirates, under Oriental stars! Fifteen men on a dead man's chest--yo-ho,
and a bottle of rum! A glorious adventure, with three meals the day and
grand opera on the phonograph. Shades of Gilbert and Sullivan! And you
will always be wondering whether the pirate made love to you in jest or in
earnest--and he'll always be wondering, too!"

Cunningham turned away abruptly and clumped toward the bridge ladder,
which he mounted.

For some inexplicable reason her heart became filled with wild resentment
against him. Mocking her, when she had only offered him kindness! She
clung to the idea of mockery because it was the only tangible thing she
could pluck from her confusion. Thus when she began the descent of the
companionway and ran into Dennison coming up her mood was not receptive to
reproaches.

"Where have you been?" he demanded.

"Watching the stars and the phosphorescence. I could not sleep."

"Alone?"

"No. Mr. Cunningham was with me."

"I warned you to keep away from that scoundrel!"

"How dare you use that tone to me? Have you any right to tell me what I
shall and shall not do?" she stormed at him. "I've got to talk to someone.
You go about in one perpetual gloom. I purpose to see and talk to
Cunningham as often as I please. At least he amuses me."

With this she rushed past him and on to her cabin, the door of which she
closed with such emphasis that it was heard all over the yacht--so sharp
was the report that both Cleigh and Dodge awoke and sat up, half convinced
that they had heard a pistol shot!

Jane sat down on her bed, still furious. After a while she was able to
understand something of this fury. The world was upside down, wrong end
to. Dennison, not Cunning