I bowed to her. “I am glad if it gives you pleasure to see me hurt. I am. Habeo!”
“But it was not so as to me,” I added presently. “Yes, I said good-by to you, that last time, and I meant it. I had tried for years, I believe, with every argument in my power, to explain to you that I loved you, to explain that in every human likelihood we would make a good match of it, that we—we—well, that we’d hit it off fine together, very likely. And then, I was well enough off—at first, at least——”
“Oh, don’t!” she protested. “It is like opening a grave. We buried it all, Harry. It’s over. Can’t you spare a girl, a middle-aged girl of twenty-four, this resurrection? We ended it. Why, Harry, we have to make out some sort of life for ourselves, don’t we? We can’t just sit down and—and——”
“No,” said I. “I tried it. I got me a little place, far up in the wilderness with what remained of my shattered fortunes—a few acres. And I sat down there and tried that ‘and—and’ business. It didn’t seem to work. But we don’t get on much in our parley, do we?”
“No. The most charitable thing I can think of is that you are crazy. Aunt Lucinda must be right. But what do you intend to do with us? We can’t get off the boat, and we can’t get any answer to our signals for help.”
“So you have signaled?”
“Of course. Waved things, you know.”
“Delightful! The passing steamers no doubt thought you a dissipated lot of northern joy-riders, bound south on some rich man’s yacht.”
“Instead of two troubled women on a stolen boat.”
“Are you engaged to Cal Davidson, Helena?”