wouldn't be looking down at
the grass like that," he continued.

"Oh, it's--it's--it's a _beastly_ shame, that's what it is, so there!"
And as she said this Miss Nitocris Marmion, B.Sc., stamped her foot on
the turf and felt inclined to burst out crying, just as a milkmaid might
have done.

"Which means," said Mark, pulling himself up, as a man about to face a
mortal enemy would do, "that the Professor has said 'No.' In other
words, he has decided that his learned and lovely daughter shall not, as
I suppose he would put it, mate with an animal of a lower order--a mere
fighting-man. Well, Miss Marmion----"

"Oh, don't; _please_ don't!" she exclaimed, almost piteously, dropping
into a big wicker armchair by the verandah and putting her hands over
her eyes.

He had an awful fear that she was going to cry, and, as the Easterns
say, he felt his heart turning to water within him. But her highly
trained intellect came to her aid. She swallowed the sob, and looked up
at him with clear, dry eyes.

"It isn't quite that, Mark," she continued. "You know I wouldn't stand
anything like that even from the dear old Dad. Much as I love him, and
even, as you know, in some senses almost worship him, it isn't that.
It's this theory of heredity of his--this scientific faith--bigotry, I
call it, for it is just the same to him as Catholicism was to the
Spaniards in the sixteenth century. In fact, I told him the other night
that he reminded me of the Spanish grandee whose daughters were
convicted of heresy by the Inquisition, and who showed his devotion to
the Church by lighting the faggots which burned them with his own
hands."

"And what did he say to that?" said the sailor, not because he wanted to
know, but because there was an awkward pause that needed filling.

"I would rather not tell you, Mark, if you don't mind," she said slowly
and looking very straightly and steadily at him. "You know--well, I
needn't tell you again what I've told you already. You know I care for
you, and I always shall, but I cannot--I dare not--disobey my father. I
owe all that I ever had to him. He has been father, mother, teacher,
friend, companion--everything to me. We are absolutely alone in the
world. If I could leave him for anybody, I'd leave him for you, but I
won't disobey him and break his heart, as I believe I should, even for
you."

"You're perfectly right, Niti, perfectly," said Commander Merrill, in a
tone of steady conviction which inspir