“I’m sorry for ye, ’Bias—­you can’t think—­”

“Oh, you can stow that bachelor chaff,” interrupted ’Bias with entire cheerfulness.  “I used to feel that way myself, or pretend to.  It’s different when a man knows.”

“I can’t let ye go on like this!” Cai groaned again.  “Stop it, ’Bias—­ do!”

“Stop it?” ’Bias stared.  He was plainly amazed.

“I mean, stop talkin’ about it!  I do, indeed.”

Still ’Bias stared.  Of a sudden a partial light broke in upon him.  “Good Lord!” he muttered.  He arose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, laid it carefully on the chimney-shelf, slid his hands under his coat-tails, and very solemnly faced about.

“I’d an inklin’ o’ this, once or twice, and I don’t mind confessin’ it,” said he, looking down with a compassionate air which Cai found insupportable.  “Tho’ ‘twas no more than an inklin’, and I put it aside, seein’ as how no man with eyes could mistake the one she favoured.”

“Meanin’ me, o’ course,” interjected Cai, jabbing the tobacco down in his pipe.

“You?” ’Bias opened his eyes wide:  then he smiled an indulgent smile.  “Ho—­you must excuse me—­but if that isn’ too rich!”

“You needn’t start grinnin’ like that, or you may end by grinnin’ on the wrong side of your face.”  Cai, instead of pitying his friend’s infatuation, was fast losing his temper.  “What’d you say if I told you I had proofs?”

“I’d say you was a plumb liar,” answered ’Bias with equal promptness, candour, and aplomb.  “Proofs? What proofs?”

Cai hesitated a moment. . . .  After all, what proof had he to cite?  A gentle pressure of the arm, for example, is not producible evidence.  “Never you mind,” said he sullenly.  “You’ll have proof enough when the time comes.”

’Bias received this with a dry smile.  “I thought as much.  You haven’t any, my sonny—­not so much as would cover a threepenny-bit.”

“You have, I suppose?” sneered Cai.

“Heaps.”

“Very well; let’s have a sample. . . .  You won’t find it on the mantelpiece,” for ’Bias had turned about and was picking up his pipe again with great deliberation.

“I’ve no wish to hurt your feelin’s undooly,” said he, eyeing the bowl for a moment and tapping out the ashes into his palm.

“Don’t mind me!”

“But I do mind ye. . . .  See here now, Cai,” he resumed after a short pause, “we’ve known one another—­let me see—­how long?”

“Seventeen years, come the twenty-first of November next,” quickly responded Cai, fumbling at the tobacco-jar.  “In Rotterdam, if you’ll remember—­our vessels lyin’ alongside.  ‘Hullo!’ says you.”

“Far as I remember, you asked me aboard.”