“Not exactly all—I’ve still got the yacht; she suggested my getting some sea air.”
“I don’t see what you’ve got to worry about,” she returned, after a pause, a vestige of a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. “Jack, you’re a fool—forgive me, but you are. Here you are—pretty close to a nervous wreck—mooning over the threats of this cat of a woman, with a free course out of your difficulties wide open to you.”
“All that’s easier said than done,” he returned gloomily.
“You mean the expense?”
“Of course I mean the expense. Do you know what it costs to put the Seamaid in commission? She’s small, I’ll admit, and she’s been freshly overhauled—I even put two new staterooms in her last year when I was flush—but you know what yachting costs, Rose. It isn’t so much the craft, or her crew, or even her coal bill—it’s the life. There’s no use of sailing—whanging around by your lonesome, without friends aboard. I tried that once.”
“There is no need of your going alone,” she returned softly, meeting his eyes.
She stretched out her bare arms to him.
“Come,” she said quietly. “Come and sit here beside me. Ah, my poor old Jack! What a baby you are!
“There! That’s better,” she said, as he seated himself beside her on the divan.
He bent and kissed her, smoothing back her dark hair.