A narrow skirt, however, had not led Tunis Latham to give particular note to one certain girl in the throng.  She had stepped through the door of a cheap but garish restaurant.  Somebody had thrown a peeling on the sidewalk, and she had slipped on it.  Tunis had leaped and caught her before she measured her length.  She looked up into his face with startled, violet eyes that seemed, in that one moment, to hold in them a fascination and power that the Cape man had never dreamed a woman’s eyes could possess.

“You’re all right, ma’am,” he said, confused, setting her firmly on her feet.

“My skirt!” She almost whispered it.  There seemed to be not a shyness, but a terrified timidity in her voice and manner.  Tunis saw that the shabby skirt was torn widely at the hem.

“Let’s go somewhere and get that fixed,” he suggested awkwardly.

“Thank you, sir.  I will go back into the restaurant.  I work there.  I can get a pin or two.”

He had to let her go, of course.  Nor could he follow her.  He lacked the boldness that might have led another man to enter the restaurant and order something to eat for the sake of seeing what became of the girl with the violet eyes and colorless velvet cheeks.  There had been an appeal in her countenance that called Tunis more and more as he dreamed about her.

And standing there on Scollay Square dreaming about her had done the young captain of the Seamew positively no good!  She did not come out again, although he stood there for fully an hour.  At the end of that time he strolled up an alley and discovered that there was a side door to the restaurant for the use of employees, and he judged that the girl, seeing him lingering in front, had gone out by this way.  It made him flush to his ears when he thought of it.  Of course, he had been rude.

Marching up the winding road by the Ball homestead, Tunis Latham revisioned this adventure—­and the violet-eyed girl.  Well, he probably would never see her again.  And in any case she was not the sort of girl that he would ever take home to Aunt Lucretia.  He was headed toward home now, to the old brown house in the saucer-like valley some distance beyond Cap’n Ira’s.

As he came within hail of the old homestead in which the Balls had been born and had died—­if they were not lost at sea—­for many generations, the captain of the Seamew became suddenly aware that something was particularly wrong there.  He heard somebody shouting.  Was it for help?  He hastened his stride.

Quite unexpectedly the hobbling figure of Cap’n Ira appeared in the open barn door.  He saw Tunis.  He waved his cane in one hand and beckoned wildly with the other.  Then he disappeared.

The young captain vaulted the fence and ran across the ill-tended garden adjoining the Balls’ side yard.  Again he heard Cap’n Ira’s hail.

“Come on in here, Tunis!”

“What’s the matter, Cap’n Ira?”