The man beside him, noisily finishing his soup, ordered apple-meringue pie when the waitress returned with Tunis’ order.  The latter noted that her fingers still trembled when she placed his food before him.  When she brought the pie she reached for the man’s check and punched another hole in it.  Tunis was careful not to raise his own eyes to her face.  But all the time he was trying to invent some way by which he might further his acquaintance with her.

He must be back at the Seamew that night.  Tomorrow the cargo would come aboard and, wind and tide being ordinarily favorable, the schooner would put to sea as soon as the hatches were battened down.  He could not continue to come here to the restaurant for his meals and so grasp the frail chance of bolstering his acquaintance with the girl.  Indeed, he felt that such an obvious course would utterly wreck any chance he might naturally have of knowing her better.

The timidity she evinced was nothing put on.  It was real.  Its cause he could not fathom, but to Tunis Latham it seemed that this girl with the violet eyes was a gentle girl, if not gently bred, and that she shrank from contact with the rougher elements of life.  How she came to be working in this place was not of moment to him.  It would not have mattered to Tunis Latham where he had met her or under what circumstances; he only knew that there was a mysterious charm about her which attracted and held his heart captive.

“Will you have anything more, sir?” The low, yet penetrating voice was in his ear.  She hovered over his chair and her near presence thrilled him.  He had not much more than played with the food.  Now he replied briefly, without thinking: 

“Apple-meringue.”

“Yes, sir.”

His neighbor pushed back his chair and got up noisily.  He picked up his check, glanced at it, and snorted.

“Hey!” he said to the girl returning with Tunis’ pie.  “What’s this for?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You’ve rung me up an extry nickel.  What’s the idea?”

“Fifteen cents for meringue, sir.”

“Huh?  Who had meringue?  I had apple pie, plain apple pie.  It’s ten cents.  This feller”—­indicating Tunis—­“ordered apple-meringue; not me.”

He held out the check for correction belligerently.

“You ordered apple-meringue, sir, and I brought it.  You ate it.  The check is correct.”

Low and timid as the voice was, gently as the words were spoken, Tunis sensed an undercurrent of firmness and determination in the girl’s character that he had not before suspected.

“Say, you don’t put nothing like that over on me!” exclaimed the man loudly.

Tunis moved in his chair.  He saw the black-haired man at the front of the restaurant swing about to face down the room.  He had heard this unseemly disturbance.

“I will call the manager.”

“And so will I—­I’ll call him good!” sneered the patron.  “He knows that you crooks in here over-charge.  He puts you up to it.  That’s why he hires jailbirds and—­”