"Perhaps you will regret it if you go on the stage," he observed, abruptly.
"Oh, no; for it is the dream of my life!" smiled Geraldine.
"Will your friends permit it?"
"I'm only an orphan girl, earning her own living, so I don't need to ask any one's leave. And I'm glad of that, for I'm ambitious, and want to rise in life. I'm tired of being the slave of the public at a dry-goods counter," cried Geraldine, with sparkling eyes.
He gazed at her admiringly, but he did not hesitate to say:
"It is only an exchange of slavery from the counter to the stage. You will be the slave of the public still. If you would listen to me, I would persuade you to remain where you are—until some good man marries you, and makes you the queen of his heart and home."
Geraldine tossed her shining head, and gave him a saucy smile, and retorted:
"That sounds like my chum's preaching, but I shall not listen to either of you. My heart is set on a stage career."
Harry Hawthorne gave her a grave look, but made no reply in words, and for a few moments they kept silence, while the gay, lilting music of the band filled up the pauses, and the sun pierced through the fog and smiled on the majestic steamer plowing her way through the blue, sparkling waves.
Geraldine felt intuitively that he disapproved of her plans, and maintained a pouting silence until he remarked, genially: