naked, as she
believed him to be, and the thing gripped him with a sort of horror. And
she was wrong. He had followed what he believed to be good judgment and
common sense. If, in doing that, he had been an accursed fool--

Determinedly he started for her cabin, his mind set upon correcting her
malformed judgment of him. There was no light coming under her door.
When he knocked, there was no answer from within. He waited, and tried
again, listening for a sound of movement. And each moment he waited he
was readjusting himself. He was half glad, in the end, that the door
did not open. He believed Miss Standish was inside, and she would
undoubtedly accept the reason for his coming without an apology
in words.

He went to his cabin, and his mind became increasingly persistent in its
disapproval of the wrong viewpoint she had taken of him. He was not
comfortable, no matter how he looked at the thing. For her clear eyes,
her smoothly glorious hair, and the pride and courage with which she had
faced him remained with him overpoweringly. He could not get away from
the vision of her as she had stood against the door with tears like
diamonds on her cheeks. Somewhere he had missed fire. He knew it.
Something had escaped him which he could not understand. And she was
holding him accountable.

The talk of the smoking-room did not interest him tonight. His efforts
to become a part of it were forced. A jazzy concert of piano and string
music in the social hall annoyed him, and a little later he watched the
dancing with such grimness that someone remarked about it. He saw
Rossland whirling round the floor with a handsome, young blonde in his
arms. The girl was looking up into his eyes, smiling, and her cheek lay
unashamed against his shoulder, while Rossland's face rested against her
fluffy hair when they mingled closely with the other dancers. Alan
turned away, an unpleasant thought of Rossland's association with Mary
Standish in his mind. He strolled down into the steerage. The Thlinkit
people had shut themselves in with a curtain of blankets, and from the
stillness he judged they were asleep. The evening passed slowly for him
after that, until at last he went to his cabin and tried to interest
himself in a book. It was something he had anticipated reading, but
after a little he wondered if the writing was stupid, or if it was
himself. The thrill he had always experienced with this particular
writer was missing. There was no insp