hful passion in it; "just one now. It'll be
gey lang before we meet again. Ye'll not refuse me now."

The young girl's lips seemed to murmur some protest that, however, was
lost in the beginning of a long and silent kiss.

The consul slipped out softly. His smile had died away. That
unlooked-for touch of human weakness seemed to purify the stuffy and
evil-reeking cabin, and the recollection of its brutal past to drop with
a deck-load of iniquity behind him to the bottom of the Clyde. It is
to be feared that in his unofficial moments he was inclined to be
sentimental, and it seemed to him that the good ship Skyscraper
henceforward carried an innocent freight not mentioned in her manifest,
and that a gentle, ever-smiling figure, not entered on her books, had
invisibly taken a place at her wheel.

But he was recalled to himself by a slight altercation on deck. The
young girl and the passenger had just returned from the cabin. The
consul, after a discreetly careless pause, had lifted his eyes to the
young girl's face, and saw that it was singularly pretty in color and
outline, but perfectly self-composed and serenely unconscious. And he
was a little troubled to observe that the passenger was a middle-aged
man, whose hard features were already considerably worn with trial and
experience.

Both he and the girl were listening with sympathizing but cautious
interest to her father's contention with the boatman who had brought
them from shore, and who was now inclined to demand an extra fee for
returning with them. The boatman alleged that he had been detained
beyond "kirk time," and that this imperiling of his salvation could
only be compensated by another shilling. To the consul's surprise,
this extraordinary argument was recognized by the father, who, however,
contented himself by simply contending that it had not been stipulated
in the bargain. The issue was, therefore, limited, and the discussion
progressed slowly and deliberately, with a certain calm dignity and
argumentative satisfaction on both sides that exalted the subject,
though it irritated the captain.

"If ye accept the premisses that I've just laid down, that it's a
contract"---began the boatman.

"Dry up! and haul off," said the captain.

"One moment," interposed the consul, with a rapid glance at the slight
trouble in the young girl's face. Turning to the father, he went on:
"Will you allow me to offer you and your daughter a seat in my boat?"

It was