"Hard lines—"
"And yet he is asking little Jean to marry him. I wonder if she will keep step with him."
"Why shouldn't she?"
"Because Derry is going to travel far and fast in the next few months," Drusilla prophesied.
Her face settled into tired lines. For the first time the Captain saw her divorced from her radiance. He set himself to cheer her.
"What is troubling you, dear woman?"
She was very frank, and she told him the truth. "I should have been glad to keep step with him myself."
He laid his hand over hers. "If you had, where would I be? From the moment I saw you, you filled my heart."
So, after all, she had been to him from the first, not a type but a woman. It had come to him like that, but not to her. "You're the bravest and best man I have ever met," she told him, "but I don't love you."
"I should be glad to wait," said the poor Captain, "until you could find something in me to like."