Scheherazade. Otherwise, I shouldn't have ordered my
steward to throw the remains of my dinner out of the corridor
porthole. No, dear child. I should have had it analysed, had your
stateroom searched for more of that elusive seasoning you used to
flavour my dinner; had a further search made for a certain sort of
handkerchief and perfume. Also, just imagine the delightful evidence
which a thorough search of your papers might reveal!" He laughed. "No,
Scheherazade; I did not care to prove you anything resembling a menace
to society. Because, in the first place, I am absurdly grateful to
you."

Her face became expressionless under the slow flush mounting.

"I'm not teasing you," he insisted. "What I say is true. I'm grateful
to you for violently injecting romance into my perfectly commonplace
existence. You have taken the book of my life and not only extra
illustrated it with vivid and chromatic pictures, but you have unbound
it, sewed into its prosaic pages several chapters ripped bodily from a
penny-dreadful, and you have then rebound the whole thing and pasted
your own pretty picture on the cover! Come, now! Ought not a man to
be grateful to any philanthropic girl who so gratuitously obliges
him?"

Her face burned under his ridicule; her clasped hands in her lap were
twisted tight as though to maintain her self-control.

"What do you want of me?" she asked between lips that scarcely moved.

He laughed, sat up, stretched out both arms with a sigh of
satisfaction. The colour came back to his face; he dropped one leg
over the bed's edge; and she stood erect and stepped aside for him to
rise.

No dizziness remained; he tried both feet on the floor, straightened
himself, cast a gaily malicious glance at her, and slowly rose to his
feet.

"Scheherazade," he said, "_isn't_ it funny? I ask you, did you ever
hear of a would-be murderess and her escaped victim being on such
cordial terms? Did you?"

He was going through a few calisthenics, gingerly but with increasing
abandon, while he spoke.

"I feel fine, thank you. I am enjoying the situation extremely, too.
It's a delightful paradox, this situation. It's absurd, it's
enchanting, it's incredible! There is only one more thing that could
make it perfectly impossible. And I'm going to do it!" And he
deliberately encircled her waist and kissed her.

She turned white at that, and, as he released her, laughing, took a
step or two blindly, toward the door; stood there