"Never!" said she promptly. "I hate you very much. You have been
presumptuous and overbearing."
"Why then should you promenade with me?"
"Fault of anything better, Sir!" But she took my hand lightly, smiling
as I assisted her down the landing way.
"But tell me," she added as we made our way slowly up the muddy slope,
"really, Harry, how long is this thing to last? When are we going back
home?"
"How can you ask? And how can I reply, save in one way, after taking
the advice of yonder pirate captain, your blue-eyed nephew? He says
they always live happy ever after. Listen, Helena. Gaze upon this
waistcoat! Forget its stripes, and imagine it to be sprigged silk of a
day long gone by. Let us play that romance is not yet dead. These are
not cuffs, but ruffles at my wrists--for all Cal Davidson's
extraordinary taste in shirts. All the world lies before us, and it is
yesterday once more. The Mediterranean, Helena, how blue it is--the
Bermudas, how fine they are of a winter day! And yonder lies motley
Egypt and her sands. Or Paris, Helena; or Vienna, the voluptuous, with
her gay ways of life. Or Nagasaki, Helena--little brown folks running
about, and all the world white in blossoms. All the world, Helena,
with only you and I in it, and with not a care until, at least, we
have eaten the last of our tinned goods of the ship's supplies; since
I am poor. But if I could give you all that, would I be nice?"
"Would that suit you, Harry?" she asked soberly; "just gallivanting?"
"You know it would not. You know I want no vacation lasting all my
life, nor does any real man. You know it was yourself that forced me
out of my man's place and robbed me of my greatest right."
"Yes," said she, "a man's place is to fight and to work. It's the
same to-day. But," she added, "you ran away; and you lost."
"But am I not trying to recoup my fortune, Helena? You see, I have
already acquired a yacht, although but a few weeks ago I started in
the world with scarcely more than my bare hands. Could Monte Cristo
have done more?"
"It isn't money a woman wants in a man."
"What is it, then?"
"I don't know," said she. "Oh, come, we mustn't go to arguing these
things all over again! I'm weary of it. And certainly Aunt Lucinda and
I both are weary of our hat box yonder. That's what I asked you, how
long?"
"As long as I like, Helena, you and your Aunt Lucinda shall dwell
there. What would you say to three years or so?"
She seemed not to hear. "I believe I've found a four leaf clover,"
said she.