"Then you, too, have felt as I feel?"
"No, I never thought of it in that way."
She was silent a moment, but she regarded him searchingly. His face was upturned, gazing at the flapping sail on the mainmast. She caught the strong, classic profile in the starlight, and over her flooded the deep sense of her utter dependence upon him, upon his skill, his strength, his resource, and the deeper sense of her implicit trust in him as the embodiment of all these qualities.
She yearned now to express to him her emotions; she almost felt she must. And yet she hardly knew how. She had tried to do so, but how inadequate her words had seemed! Bearing in upon her mood, Dan's cool, even voice sounded miles away.
"Miss Howland, had you thought—"
She interrupted him.
"See here, Daniel Merrithew, I said before that ceremony had no part on this boat. Hereafter, if you won't call me by my first name you must address me by my last. It must be either one or the other."
Dan made no comment. He hesitated just a moment, then he said:
"I was going to ask you, Virginia, if you had thought of going to your cabin yet."
She smiled and blushed.