"I take it, you mean she has seen the display of your strongest and best qualities, in circumstances that did not call for such non-essentials as mere polish—drawing room culture."
"You mean, for all that counts most with ninety-nine per cent of your class and hers," rejoined Blake. "And there's the craving, too. I'll have to fight that out before I'll be fit to let her do anything. Think I don't know the difference between us? No! I'm going to go the limit, Jimmy. I can't do less, and be square to her. So I give you full leave. You're free to play your hand for all there is in it. I'll stay here—"
"No—no! I'll not hear of it, Tom!"
"Yes, you will. I'll stay here, and you'll see her clear through to America—to Chicago—right to her papa's house and in through the door. Understand? I don't make a single condition. You're to try your best to win; and if you do, why—don't you see?—it'll show that this which she thinks is the real thing is all a mistake."
"My word, old man! you'd not give her up without a fight? That wouldn't be like you!"
"It all depends. I won't if it's true she loves me—God! no! I'd go through hell-fire for her!"
"If I know you, Tom, you'll suffer that and more, should the event prove she is mistaken as to the nature of her present feeling."
"What of it?" muttered Blake, with a look that told the other the uselessness of persuasion. "Think I'd let her marry me, long as there's a shadow of a chance of her being mistaken?"
"Very well, then," replied his friend. "You've said your say. Now I'll say mine. I can ease the tedium of Miss Leslie's trip up the coast; and I stand ready to do so—on two conditions. In the first place; you're to come aboard and stay aboard. After I find a chaperon for her at Aden, you're to go on home with me, to visit at Ruthby."
"Excuse me!" said Blake. "I can see myself parading around your ancestral stone-heap with your ducal dad!"