He returned to the yacht in high good humor and made ready for the farewell festivity.
"That's a regular fellow, Barrison," he said to his wife, as he was making his toilet.
"Oh, you wait," she replied.
"I don't care a darn how he sings," remarked Mr. Wilbur, "but in his case a man's a man for a' that. I don't wonder—" he stopped.
"What don't you wonder, dear?"
"Oh—at his popularity. My dear, dear Laura," he added after a pause, smiling at his reflection in the glass as he used his military brushes, "you're a wonderful woman."
"Why, thank you, Charlie. What have I done now?" As he did not reply, but continued to smile into his own eyes, she gave his arm a little squeeze as she passed him. "I won you, anyway," she said triumphantly, "and I need a compliment or two, for I never knew Diana to be so strange and changeable as she has been to-day. The dear girl can't be well, and I don't think I have realized quite the awfulness of her experience with Herbert Loring. She was actually in danger for a time of being accused of hastening his death. Why, it was dreadful."
"Poor Diana, poor little girl," returned Charles Wilbur ruminatively.