"You know. The wave that threatened to wreck our friendship."
He did not answer for a moment, but sat gazing at her, at the joyous curves of her sweet mouth, the flying tendrils of hair that curled around her small ears, the tender expression of her clear eyes. "Will you take it?" he asked suddenly. "I make no conditions—I have no right. I have my way to make, you know, but if you will have the picture—"
"As a sign and seal of our eternal friendship? Yes, I will take it gladly, and thank you a thousand times. You are right. You have your way to make, and you must not let anything stand in the way of that. No man has the right to hamper his career in the beginning, and no woman," she added softly, "would allow him to, if she valued his success at all. I do value yours, Mr. Hilary."
"I believe it, dear Gwen. Please let me call you that, and say Kenneth to me."
"I agree, for we are friends, real, true, loyal friends aren't we?"
"We are that. At the very least I am your true friend. At the very most—I cannot tell you what I am at the most. Some day I hope I may."
"Wait till that some day, and in the meantime you will tell me everything else; you will see me often and life will be very sweet, I hope. Are we so near home? Yes, ours is the next landing, and—oh dear me, I hadn't noticed that our heavily burdened neighbors had gone ashore. We are the only ones left on this deck. Did you think I was very forward to make that venturesome journey over all that pile of stuff in order to speak to you? I did it wilfully because I simply could not have things going on so wofully."
"I not only forgive you, but I bless you for your heroism. Do you forgive me for being so stand-offish?"
"You were horrid. I never saw such an iceberg."
"As I pretended to be. It was all pretence. I was a seething volcano inside when you sat down."