“Do I intrude upon your sacred precincts?” she asked, “or am I welcome?  I want to talk to you.”

“You are welcome, Miss Howland,” said Dan, knocking the fire from his pipe and stuffing the briar-wood into his pocket, at the same time glancing quickly toward the wheel where the mate and the quartermaster were busy over a slight alteration in course.

“I feared that incident at the table—­Reggie Wotherspoon’s behavior, I mean, might have upset you.  Of course you know he meant nothing by it.  We all understand how he hates to be beaten in an argument.  Really he admires you—­which is well for him, I can assure you.”

Dan, deeply embarrassed, muttered something about understanding perfectly about Wotherspoon, and that he knew him to be a decent enough sort of chap.

“Do you know,” went on the girl, “I myself was rather startled at first when you said that no man—­that you could not tell whether you would flunk in time of danger.  I was so glad when you made your reservation that in the past, at least, you had not shown the white feather.  ’What the past has shown,’” she quoted, “‘who can gainsay the future?’ Oh, it was glorious,” she exclaimed impulsively, “the night you stuck to our yacht until your own tug was battered to pieces!  I suppose I have said that a hundred times; but it grows more thrilling every time I think of it.”

She looked at him with open interest.  His uniform became him well; the trim sack coat fitted his great, deep chest and almost abnormal shoulders snugly; and above were the square, smooth face, the steady gray eyes, and the red-gold hair; and the long, straight limbs supported a lithe, almost aggressive poise.

She started slightly forward.

“Have you ever thought how much we owe you?  Oh, I have so often wished I could show you how much we appreciate all you did, in some way!”

“You must not think of it in that way.”

“Why not, please?” Miss Howland was a straightforward girl who faced a situation squarely.

“Why, because the debt is all on my side.  Your father has given me my first command; and you—­you have been fine to me.  I have had more than an ordinary sailor deserves.”

“But you are not an ordinary sailor,” said the girl quickly.  “Father knows of your people—­” She paused.  “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she cried.

“Listen,” said Dan, quietly.  “When I was younger, about to enter college, a careless, happy life ended.  I began all over again then.  I date everything from that beginning—­from the time I went aboard a tug-boat—­the Lord knows why—­and tried to do something.  What I have done, what I shall do, dating from that time, I stand on.  Before that my battles were fought for me.  After that the fight was my own.  And I have never regretted one bit of it; nor am I ashamed of one single minute from the time I slung hawsers on the Hydrographer until I commanded the Fledgling.  And I shall always rejoice, and my friends must rejoice, in that part of the fight, and never seek to hide a single incident.  It’s all behind now, but it was worth while.  And a man must go on—­”