She turned her head and looked at him incredulously.
"Explain yourself, please," she insisted.
"With pleasure," he assented. "You see, I just had to make sure of being allowed to have a few minutes' conversation with you, free from any interruption. Somehow or other," he added thoughtfully, "I don't believe your father likes me."
"I do not think," she replied coldly, "that my father has any feelings about you at all, except that he thinks you are abominably presumptuous."
"Because I want to marry you?"
She stamped with her foot upon the ground.
"Please do not say such absurd things! Explain to me at once what you mean by saying that my father is being kept there by your orders."
"I'll try," Lane answered. "He boarded that yacht last night in mistake. He thought that it was a hired one, but it isn't. It's mine. I found him there last night, entertaining a little party of his friends in the saloon. They seemed quite comfortable, so I begged them to remain on as my guests for a short time."
"To remain?" she murmured, bewildered. "For how long?"
"Until you've just read this through and thought it over."