Mr. Drew has promised to find me a position in San Francisco. They say it's a charming city."

"I don't like to see you mixed up with Drew and his kind," I protested. "I'll not leave San Francisco until you do."

"Then you're going to settle down here. How nice!"

I could have slapped her. She was that sort of stubborn delightful child, and loving her was often that sort of emotion. The port doctor had reached her now in his passage down the line, and he stared firmly into her eyes, hunting symptoms. As he stared his hard face softened into a rather happy smile. I could have told him that looking into Mary Will's eyes had always that effect.

"You're all right," he laughed, then turned and glared at me as though he dared me to make public his lapse into a human being. He went on down the line. After him came Parker, the ship's doctor, with a wink at me, as much as to say: "Red tape. What a bore!"

The foghorn was making a frightful din, and the scene was all confusion, impatience. It was no moment for what I was about to say. But I was desperate; this was my last chance.

"Turn round, Mary Will." I swung her about and pointed off into the fog. "Over there-don't you see?"

"See what?" she gasped.

"How I love you," I said in her ear, triumphing over the foghorn and the curiosity of the woman just beyond her: "With all my heart and soul, my dear. I'm an engineer-not up on sentimental stuff-can't talk it-just feel it. Give me a chance to prove how much I care. Don't you think that in time-"

She shook her head.

"What is it? Are you still fond of that other boy-the poor fellow in Shanghai?"

"No," she answered seriously. "It isn't that. I've just sort of buried him away off in a corner of my heart. And I'm not sure that I ever did care as much as I should. On the boat coming out-I had doubts of myself-but-"

"But what?"

"Oh-can't you see? It's just as that old dowager said it would be."

"What old dowager?"

"That sharp-tongued Englishwoman who gave the dinner in Shanghai. She saw you talking and laughing with me, and she said: 'I fancy he'll be just like all the other boys who are shut up in China for a few years. They think themselves madly in love with the first white girl they meet who isn't positively deformed.'"

"The old cat!"

"It was catty-but it was true. It's exactly what has happened. That's why I couldn't be so frightfully unfair to you as to seize you when this madness is on you and bind you to me for life-before you have seen your own country again, where there are millions of girls nicer than I am."

"Rot."

"No, it isn't. Go ashore and look them over. The streets of San Francisco are filled with them. Look them over from the Golden Gate to Fifth Avenue."

"And if, after I've looked them all over, I still come back to you? Then what?"

"Then you will be a fool," laughed Mary Will.

The voice of the ship's doctor announced the end of inspection, and at once the deck was alive with an excited throng, all seeking to get somewhere else immediately. Carlotta Drew passed and called to Mary Will.

The girl held out her hand.