said, arranging the cushions in a chair. "But I hardly think you'll find
anything dreadful about it."

"You don't?" she asked pointedly.

"No," I answered. "The dreadful part's for me."

I knew this was not true, or only partially true, but considered it
justifiable after Tommy's warning--and Tommy knew a lot about women. I
remembered him saying once that a girl's determination could be changed
in two ways: by opposition, and by cooperation. I had tried opposition,
so now I would pretend to fall resignedly in with Monsieur's plan,
taking it for granted that her future promised nothing but idyllic
happiness, that memories would pass, and all that kind of thing. I would
become an enigma to her--for this, also, had been one of Tommy's diverse
methods of success. Some day, confessing how my triumph had been
achieved, we both would laugh over it, and then she would have to admit
that Tommy was not the only one who knew a thing or two about women.

So reasoning, I started in at once. For a while she stared at me, her
eyes growing wider and wider. Then she arose and went to the rail,
remarking coolly:

"Please signal to have Echochee and Monsieur Dragot brought out at
once." And that was the only thing she would say.

To hell with what Tommy knew about women! She would not so much as look
at me again, and when that wretched old rag of a shriveled-up squaw,
incarnate fiend of a watchful guardian, arrived my princess retired to
her stateroom, nor did she appear again the entire day. What Tommy knew
about women, indeed!

The rest of us lunched in moody silence, except Monsieur who grew
loquacious to the point of making himself an ass. He was not on the
crest of popularity, anyway. Previously, in order to give Doloria more
freedom, Tommy and I decided to sleep on deck and use Gates's quarters
for a dressing room. But when this proposition was also opened to the
professor he flatly refused to join with us. The truth of the matter was
that he had determined upon a plan--singularly popular among
pedagogues--of watchful waiting; he had made up his mind that Doloria
and I should not see each other again except in his presence. He may
have told her this--I rather suspected it.

As we sat in the cockpit smoking, he became down-right obnoxious by
excessive jocularity. It can be disgustingly overdone. Believing that
his triumph was assured, he sputtered and giggled with small regard for
my presence, and the farther he went the mad