"Of making a living?" inquired the girl, after a moment's silence.
"No. I am sure of making a living, for I have always done so. Therefore, answer my question: Mary, do you think I would have any chance?" And he placed his hand softly over hers, which lay on the ship's rail.
The girl did not answer, but she did not withdraw her hand; she gazed down at the bright green water with its tinge of foam.
"I suppose you know," she said at length, "that you have every chance, and that you are merely pretending ignorance to make it easier for me, because I have simply flung myself at your head ever since we began the voyage."
"I am not pretending, Mary," he said. "What I feared was that your interest was only that of a nurse in a somewhat backward patient. I was afraid that I had your sympathy, but not your love. Perhaps that was the case at first."
"Perhaps that was the case—at first—but it is far from being the truth now—Sidney."
The young man made a motion to approach nearer to her, but the girl drew away, whispering:
"There are other people besides ourselves on deck, remember."
"I don't believe it," said Ormond, gazing fondly at her. "I can see no one but you. I believe we are floating alone on the ocean together and that there is no one else in the wide world but our two selves. I thought I went to Africa for fame, but I see I really went to find you. What I sought seems poor compared to what I have found."
"Perhaps," said the girl, looking shyly at him, "fame is waiting as anxiously for you to woo her as—as another person waited. Fame is a shameless huzzy, you know."