"I'm afraid it does;" and Jimmy looked down at her gravely, for since this was not quite the first time she had suggested the same thing he commenced to understand where she was leading him. "One might, perhaps, manage to muster enough if one could only be sure——"
He stopped somewhat awkwardly, and the girl laughed. "One very seldom can. You have to reach out boldly and clutch before the opportunity has gone."
"In the dark?"
"Of course! One can't always expect to see one's way. You were not afraid of the fog, Jimmy?"
"I was. It got hold of my nerves and shook all the stiffening out of me. In fact, in the sense you mean, I'm afraid of it still."
He checked himself for a moment, and his face was furrowed when he turned to her again. "You understand, of course. The clogging smother of uncertainty now and then gets intolerable when a man wants to do the right thing. He can't see where he is going. There is nothing to steer by."
"If you had sat down and tried to think of every reef and shoal, and what would become of the Shasta if she struck them, would you ever have reached your destination when the fog shut down?"
"No," said Jimmy; "I should in all probability have turned her round, and steamed south again."
Nellie Austerly laughed. "Instead of that you went on—and got there—as they say in this country. That, as I think you will recognize, is the point of it all."
"I also got ashore."