ime he had first seen her angry.

"He hurt my arm," she blurted out, in reply to his look of inquiry.

He smiled involuntarily. It was so like her, so like the boy she was, to
come running to complain of the physical hurt which had been done her.
She was certainly not a woman versed in the ways of man and in the ways
of handling man. The resounding slap she had given Tudor seemed still
echoing in Sheldon's ears, and as he looked at the girl before him crying
out that her arm was hurt, his smile grew broader.

It was the smile that did it, convicting Joan in her own eyes of the
silliness of her cry and sending over her face the most amazing blush he
had ever seen. Throat, cheeks, and forehead flamed with the rush of the
shamed blood.

"He--he--" she attempted to vindicate her deeper indignation, then
whirled abruptly away and passed out the rear door and down the steps.

Sheldon sat and mused. He was a trifle angry, and the more he dwelt upon
the happening the angrier he grew. If it had been any woman except Joan
it would have been amusing. But Joan was the last woman in the world to
attempt to kiss forcibly. The thing smacked of the back stairs anyway--a
sordid little comedy perhaps, but to have tried it on Joan was nothing
less than sacrilege. The man should have had better sense. Then, too,
Sheldon was personally aggrieved. He had been filched of something that
he felt was almost his, and his lover's jealousy was rampant at thought
of this forced familiarity.

It was while in this mood that the screen door banged loudly behind the
heels of Tudor, who strode into the room and paused before him. Sheldon
was unprepared, though it was very apparent that the other was furious.

"Well?" Tudor demanded defiantly.

And on the instant speech rushed to Sheldon's lips.

"I hope you won't attempt anything like it again, that's all--except that
I shall be only too happy any time to extend to you the courtesy of my
whale-boat. It will land you in Tulagi in a few hours."

"As if that would settle it," was the retort.

"I don't understand," Sheldon said simply.

"Then it is because you don't wish to understand."

"Still I don't understand," Sheldon said in steady, level tones. "All
that is clear to me is that you are exaggerating your own blunder into
something serious."

Tudor grinned maliciously and replied,--

"It would seem that you are doing the exaggerating, inviting me to leave
in your whale-boat.