Nor could the young shipmaster give much time to looking up hands.  He had freight ready for his return trip.  It must be got aboard, stowed properly, and advantage taken of the tide and a fair wind to get back to the Cape.  He had not been in the habit of going up into the city at all of late.  If that girl behind the lace counter of Hoskin & Marl’s had expected to see Tunis Latham again, she had been disappointed.  Her warm invitation to him to call on her—­possibly to take her again to lunch—­had borne only Dead Sea fruit.  He had accepted her decision regarding the Balls and Cape Cod as final and irrevocable.  At least, he had had no intention of ever going back and discussing the suggestion again.

The possibility of the real Ida May Bostwick changing her mind and reconsidering her refusal to communicate with the Balls or visit Wreckers’ Head never once entered Tunis’ mind, if it had Sheila Macklin’s.  He had seen how scornfully the cheap little shop-girl had refused the kind offer extended to her by her old relatives.  He could not have imagined her thinking of the old people and their home and Big Wreck Cove in any different way.

He was quite right in this.  Ida May Bostwick never would have looked upon these several matters differently.  The thing was settled.  Born and bred in the city, she could not conceive of any sane girl like herself deliberately burying herself down on the Cape, to “live on pollock and potatoes,” as she had heard it expressed, and be the slave of a pair of old fogies.

Not for her!  She would not think of it.  Indeed, this phase of the offer Tunis had brought her really made Ida May Bostwick angry.  What did he think she was, anyway?  In fact, she was inclined to think that that seafaring person had almost insulted her.  Although she had deliberately spoken of him as her “Cousin Tunis” to the girls who were her confidantes in the store and to her landlady, who was likewise curious about him, Ida May Bostwick was much pleased by the thought of him.

Then she began to compare Tunis with the young men she knew in Boston.  She knew that the young men she got acquainted with were either very light minded or downright objectionable.  If any of them contemplated marriage at all, they knew it could not be undertaken upon the meager salaries they were paid.  Marriage meant teamwork, with the girl working down-town just as hard as ever, and then working at night when she went home, and on Sundays, even if she and her bridegroom lived only in a furnished room and did light housekeeping.

Ida May Bostwick had a brain explosion one day when she considered these all-too-evident facts.  She said: 

“I bet that fellow wouldn’t expect his wife to stand behind a lace counter and take the sass of floorwalkers and buyers, as well as lady customers, all day long.  Not much!  He’s a regular guy, if he is a hick.  My gracious!  Don’t I wish he’d come back!  If I ever get my claws on him again—­”