The young man said nothing for a few moments. He cleared his throat several times as if to speak, but still remained silent. Miss Earle gazed down at the restless, luminous water. The throb, throb of the great ship made the bulwarks on which their arms rested tremble and quiver.
Finally Morris seemed to muster up courage enough to begin, and he said one word—
“Katherine.” As he said this he placed his hand on hers as it lay white before him in the darkness upon the trembling bulwark. It seemed to him that she made a motion to withdraw her hand, and then allowed it to remain where it was.
“Katherine,” he continued, in a voice that he hardly recognised as his own, “we have known each other only a very short time comparatively; but, as I think I said to you once before, a day on shipboard may be as long as a month on shore. Katherine, I want to ask you a question, and yet I do not know—I cannot find—I—I don’t know what words to use.”
The young lady turned her face towards him, and he saw her clear-cut profile sharply outlined against the glowing water as he looked down at her. Although the young man struggled against the emotion, which is usually experienced by any man in his position, yet he felt reasonably sure of the answer to his question. She had come with him out into the night. She had allowed her hand to remain in his. He was, therefore, stricken dumb with amazement when she replied, in a soft and musical voice—
“You do not know what to say? What do you usually say on such an occasion?”
“Usually say?” he gasped in dismay. “I do not understand you. What do you mean?”
“Isn’t my meaning plain enough? Am I the first young lady to whom you have not known exactly what to say?”
Mr. Morris straightened up, and folded his arms across his breast; then, ridiculously enough, this struck him as a heroic attitude, and altogether unsuitable for an American, so he thrust his hands deep in his coat pockets.
“Miss Earle,” he said, “I knew that you could be cruel, but I did not think it possible that you could be so cruel as this.”