"Eminently your case. Then you cannot imagine a situation in which you would lose self-possession?"
"Scarcely. Isn't it people of the finest organization, comprehensive, large-souled, that are capable of the extremes either of courage or fear? Now I am limited, so that, without rash daring or pale panic, I can generally preserve equilibrium."
"How do you know all this of yourself?" he asked, with an amused air.
"Il se présentait des occasions," she replied, briefly.
"So I presumed," said he. "Ah? They have thrown out the log. See, we make progress. If this breeze holds!"
"You are impatient, Mr. Raleigh. You have dear friends at home, whom you wish to see, who wish to see you?"
"No," he replied, with a certain bitterness in his tone. "There is no one to whom I hasten, no one who waits to receive me."
"No one? But that is terrible! Then why should you wish to hasten? For me, I would always be willing to loiter along, to postpone home indefinitely."
"That is very generous, Mademoiselle."
"Mr. Raleigh"--