had soon become calm and measured, nor did she seem to resent his cavalier treatment.

“Are you joking?” he said, smiling in sheer perplexity.

“I fail to find any humor in my words,” came the instant reply.

“Quite so. They might have been framed by a lawyer. Isn’t there a ghost of a joke in that mere fact?”

“It appeared to my sister, and I fully agree with her, that we are suggesting the best way, the only way, out of an embarrassing dilemma.”

“Yes,” agreed Maseden, drawing a long [Pg 93]breath. “I agree to all the terms; I insist only on priority of sailing from Buenos Ayres. I don’t see why I should risk my life just to save you a trifling inconvenience.”

[Pg 93]

“Then here is the address I spoke of,” and she proffered an envelope.

“Good. We’ll leave the rest to the law, Miss Nina.”

“Thank you. Good-by.”

She would have passed him, but he was on the after side of the gangway, and his outstretched hand restrained her.

“One moment, please,” he said. “I want you to tell your sister that she has thoroughly—disillusioned me.”

“I’ll do that,” she assured him, and he could not help but regard her airy self-possession as the most surprising factor in a remarkable situation.

“And you, too,” he went on. “Something has happened to you since last night. Somehow you are—harder. Forgive me if I choose unpleasant adjectives.”

She hesitated before replying. Perhaps she felt the quiet scorn underlying the words.

“Where my unhappy family is concerned, the forgiveness must come wholly from you,” she said at last. “May I go now, Mr. Maseden? Once more, thank you for all that you have done and will do. Remember, when this miserable [Pg 94]affair reaches the newspapers, it is not your reputation that will suffer, but the woman’s!”

[Pg 94]

She left him gazing blankly after her. There was a tense vibrato in the tone of the girl’s voice that touched some responsive chord in the 

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