jumped to
her feet.

"Sit down," he said, laying a hand on her dress and (aided by a lurch of
the vessel) pulling her into her seat again, "and listen to me. And then
I shall insist upon an apology. This is too much!"

"I shall ask the captain----"

"You will not, I promise you. Look here! When I was in Panama, I met
there a fellow I used to know in New York. He told me that he had
recently crossed the continent with Professor Meschines, who used to
teach geology and botany at Yale College, when he and I were students
there. The professor had come over partly for the fun of the thing, and
partly to look for specimens in the line of his profession. My friend
parted from him at San Francisco: the professor was going farther
south."

"What has all this to do with the woman who----"

"It has this to do with it,--that the professor is the woman! He is over
sixty years old, and has always been a good friend of mine; but I am not
going to marry him. I am not engaged to him, he is not beautiful, nor
even fascinating, except in the way of an elderly man of science. And
he is the only human being, besides yourself, that I know or have ever
heard of on the Pacific coast. Now for your apology!"

Grace emitted a long breath, and sank back in her seat, with her hands
clasped in her lap. She raised her hands and covered her face with them.
She removed them, sat erect, and bent an open-eyed, intent gaze upon her
companion.

After this pantomime, she exclaimed, in the lowest and most musical of
tones, "Oh! how hateful you are!" Then she cried out with animation,
"I believe you did it on purpose!" Finally, she sank back again, with a
soft laugh and sparkling eyes, at the same time stretching out her right
arm towards him and placing her hand on his, with a whispered, "There,
then!"

Freeman, accepting the hand for the apology, kissed it, and continued to
hold it afterwards.

"Am I not a little goose?" she murmured.

"You certainly are," replied Freeman.

"You mustn't hold my hand any more."

"Do you mean to withdraw your apology?"

"N--no; but it doesn't follow that----"

"Oh, yes, it does. Besides, when a man receives such a delicate,
refined, graceful, exquisite apology as this,"--here he lifted the hand,
looked at it critically, and bestowed another kiss upon it,--"he would
be a fool not to make the most of it."

"Ah, I'm afraid you're dangerous. You are well named--Freeman!"

"My name is Harvey: won't you call