“But that is different; it is impossible to compare man’s attitude toward man as you would a woman’s.”

“Yes, that’s so.”

“Then you, too, have felt as I feel?”

“No, I never thought of it in that way.”

She was silent a moment, but she regarded him searchingly.  His face was upturned, gazing at the flapping sail on the mainmast.  She caught the strong, classic profile in the starlight, and over her flooded the deep sense of her utter dependence upon him, upon his skill, his strength, his resource, and the deeper sense of her implicit trust in him as the embodiment of all these qualities.

She yearned now to express to him her emotions; she almost felt she must.  And yet she hardly knew how.  She had tried to do so, but how inadequate her words had seemed!  Bearing in upon her mood, Dan’s cool, even voice sounded miles away.

“Miss Howland, had you thought—­”

She interrupted him.

“See here, Daniel Merrithew, I said before that ceremony had no part on this boat.  Hereafter, if you won’t call me by my first name you must address me by my last.  It must be either one or the other.”

Dan made no comment.  He hesitated just a moment, then he said: 

“I was going to ask you, Virginia, if you had thought of going to your cabin yet.”

She smiled and blushed.

“I—­I wanted to speak to you about that,” she said, speaking rapidly.  “I saw you this evening taking things from the Captain’s room into the mate’s cabin.  Now, if you have any idea that I am going to sleep on this horrid, grisly boat, so far away from you, you are mistaken.  You must sleep in the Captain’s room—­and the door leading into mine must be ajar, too.  Oh, I am terribly unmaidenly!  I cannot help it; I shall be horribly forlorn and frightened, and shall hear all sorts of sounds; I can hear them now, and so can you—­”

“But,” interrupted Dan, “I cannot go to sleep, Miss—­Virginia.  This boat must be sailed to land.  There is a breeze.  She cannot be left alone; she would go a hundred miles out of her course; and, besides, we might meet a vessel.”

For a moment the girl gazed at him uncomprehendingly.

“Do you mean to say you are going to stay up all night and sail?  But you have not had a wink of sleep and I shall certainly not go into that—­” she suddenly arose.  “How stupid of me!  Of course both of us must stand watch in turn.  While you are steering I shall sleep at the wheel.  While I am steering you shall sleep there.  How simple!  Then we need not be alone at all.  Here, I’ll hold the wheel first and you go to sleep.  I shall wake you at midnight, perhaps before if I get frightened.  Then I shall be asleep through those creepy morning hours.”

Dan demurred vigorously, but she was steadfast.  So he went to the after cabin and brought out several blankets and a pillow, which she arranged deftly.