"Has she really?" said her father.
At the sudden sharp wince in the little hand that had nestled so confidently in his own he glanced back just in time to catch the look he so dreaded in her eyes.
"I—I suppose I ought to tell her," suffered Daphne.
"Tell her—what?" snapped her father.
"Why—my—my story," stammered Daphne. "It wouldn't be quite honorable not to, would it?" Desperately the young lips tried to recapture some kind of a humorous smile. "Tell—her I mean— 133 quite frankly, you know—that I'm more or less of a notorious character." In a single quiver the young mouth stripped itself of even this futile attempt at mirth. "No decent woman would ever choose to associate with me again, the President said."
In an outburst of quite irrelevant temper, Jaffrey Bretton swung around to wait for the Intruding Lady.
"Is this a tortoise race?" he demanded accusingly. "Are we to die here in our tracks of hunger and thirst?" Without so much as a "By your leave" he snatched the Intruding Lady's hand in his spare one and plunged onward again. As they raced across the spongy, tide-swept sand bar just ahead of a huge blue wave and sighted the white tents at last, he tossed back his head with a whoop of extravagant mirth. "Whatever in the world have I done," he demanded of earth, air, sky, sea, "that I should be marooned on a coral island with two beautiful ladies—one of whom is my daughter and the other the bride of another man?"
"S-s-h!" warned Daphne with a twitch of the hand. "There's a stranger at the camp fire!" Dropping her father's fingers and 134 quite ignoring the other lady she ran swiftly ahead, and dodging into a thick clump of beach-grass crouched down like a young Indian to study out the mystery. "Oh, Old-Dad!" she signaled back with her finger on her lips, "it's the—sissiest-looking man! Such queer little narrow shoulders! And the mooniest eyes! And a beard like a silk hand kerchief!"
"Must be the Outlaw," said her father
"The Outlaw?" protested Daphne. "Oh, dear me!" she cried suddenly. "He's seen me! And he's skulking off through the grass with a great roll of furs or something under his arm! Quick! Maybe we're robbed!" Darting out into full view on the beach she stood poised for a single uncertain instant while the Outlaw, as though by magic, vanished from sight.