“My dear, I wouldn’t harp too much on my rescuer if I were you. I have a shrewd suspicion why he does not disclose himself.”
“What reason could he have, dear Aunt Edwina?”
“Well, then, every one who has described him calls him tall and dark—they always dwell particularly on the dark—so maybe—mind, I only say maybe—he was one of those handsome young mulatto men.”
Viola’s eyes flashed disapprobation, and she exclaimed:
“But that is no reason he should hide himself—he was a hero all the same. And you know papa would reward him handsomely if he would accept it.”
“Probably he does not need it, or perhaps he is married and doesn’t wish to make his wife jealous by letting her know he risked his life to save a pretty young girl,” pursued Aunt Edwina, relentlessly throwing cold water on Viola’s romance.
Viola pouted indignantly and dropped the subject, for dread of ridicule was her weak point, as her relative well knew.
At the end of a week she received a tender love letter from Florian, written during the days on ship-board and mailed at Queenstown. It was so fond, and couched in such beautiful phrases, interspersed with love poems, that it warmed Viola’s heart, that had not wandered to him often in his absence, being distracted by her illness and thoughts of the unknown savior of her life.
“Dear fellow, how much he loves me, and how distracted he will be when I write him all that has happened to me since he went away!” she thought; and not to spare him the sensation, she wrote the next day a full account of it, not forgetting the handsome stranger, of whom she said:
“I do so long to know him; but, after all, perhaps it is better not, for I am so romantic I might fall in love with him and forget all about you, you know. But that is only fun, for of course I could never care for any one else as I do for you, dear Florian.”