"Often with grave inconvenience."
"I would have risked that."
"Forgive me, but amateurs are always ready to take risks."
(At this moment I became aware that Starr had slipped away.)
"Isn't it rather late," she flashed at me, "to ask my forgiveness for—anything?"
"It was a mere civility," I answered with equal insolence. "I've done nothing for which I've felt the need of your forgiveness, Miss Van Buren; but if you think I have, pray tell me once for all what it was, that I may defend myself."
"You don't feel," she echoed, "that you've done anything for which you need my forgiveness? Oh, then you're more hardened than I thought. I hoped that by this time you were repenting."
"Repenting of what?"
"Of everything. Of—putting yourself in your present position, among other things."
"You mean in the position of your skipper? I may say, that if I haven't repented, it isn't your fault. But, really, I've been so busy trying to make myself useful to the party in more ways than one, that I've had no time for repentance."