d hitting it off together, Miriam? Just tell me that, Miriam."

"Irving, I--we just couldn't! Look at mamma and papa and Ray, all down
at the boat maybe by now waiting for me, and none of them wanting to go
except me. For a whole year I had to beg them for this, Irving. They
wouldn't be going now if it wasn't for me. I--Irving, you must be
crazy!"

He leaned closer and out of range of the waiter, his voice repressed to
a tight whisper.

"None of those things count when a girl and a fellow fall in love like
you and me, Miriam."

Even in her crisis her diffidence inclosed her like a sheath. "I never
said I--I was in love, did I?"

"But you are! They'll go over there, Miriam, without you and have the
time of their lives. We'll stay home and keep the flat open for them so
your mother won't have to worry any more about burglars. After the
first surprise it won't be a trick at all. We got two hours and fifteen
minutes, dearie, and we can do the act and be down at the boat with
bells on to tell 'em good-by. Now ain't the time to think about the
little things and waste time, Miriam. We got to do it now or off you
go hiking, just like--like we had never met, a whole ocean between us,
Miriam!"

"Irving, you--you mustn't."

She pushed back from the table. He paid his check with a hand that
trembled, resuming, even as he crammed his bill-folder into a rear
pocket:

"Be a sport, Miriam! I tell you we got the right to do it because we're
in love. We'll just tell them the truth, that at the last minute we--we
just couldn't let go. I'll do the talking, Miriam; I'll tell the old
folks."

"Ray she--"

"If you ain't afraid to start out on a hundred a month and commissions,
dear, we don't need to be scared of nothing. I'll tell them just the
plain truth, dear. Just think, if we do it now, when they come back in
ten weeks we can be down at the pier to meet them, eh, Miriam, just like
an--an old married couple--eh, Miriam--eh, Miriam, dear!"

She rose. A red seepage of blood flooded her face; her bosom rose and
fell.

"Are you game, Miriam? Are you, darling--eh, Miriam, eh?"

"Yes, Irving."

* * * * *

Alongside her pier, white as a gull, new painted, new washed, cargoed
and stoked, the _Roumania_ reared three red smoke-stacks, and sat
proudly with the gang-plank flung out from her mighty hip and her nose
tapering toward the blue harbor and the blue billows beyond.

Within the narrow conf