“And if I should not consult my cousin?”

“My dear Melanie, that would entail many embarrassing consequences; and embarrassments are worse than crimes.”

Melanie could laugh at that, and did.  “I’ve already answered a note from Mr. Van Camp this morning; Auntie.  No, don’t worry,” she playfully answered a sudden anxious look that came upon her aunt’s countenance, “I’ve not said ‘yes’ to him.  But he’s coming to see me at twelve.  If I don’t give him a chance to say what he has to say, he’ll take one anywhere.  He’s capable of proposing on the street-cars.  Besides, I have something also to say to him.”

“Well, my dear, you know best; certainly I think you know best,” was Madame Reynier’s last word.

Mr. Van Camp arrived on the stroke of twelve, an expression of happiness on his lean, quizzical face.

“I’m supposed to be starting on a cruise,” he told Melanie, “but luck is with me.  My cousin hasn’t turned up—­or rather he turned up only to disappear instantly.  Otherwise he would have dragged me off to catch the first ebb-tide, with me hanging back like an anchor-chain.”

“Is your cousin, then, such a tyrant?”

“Oh, yes; he’s a masterful man, is Jimmy.”

“And how did he ‘disappear instantly?’ It sounds mysterious.”

“It is mysterious, but Jim can take care of himself; at least, I hope he can.  The message said he had sailed on the Jeanne D’Arc, whatever that is, and that I was to look after our hired yacht, the Sea Gull.”

Melanie looked up, startled.  “The Jeanne D’Arc, was it?” she cried.  “Are you sure?  But, of course—­there must be many boats by that name, are there not?  But did he say nothing more—­where he was going, and why he changed his plans?”

“No, not a word more than that.  Why?  Do you know of a boat named the Jeanne D’Arc?”

“Yes, very well; but it can not matter.  It must be another vessel, surely.  Meanwhile, what are you going to do without your companion?”

Aleck rose from the slender gilt chair where, as usual, he had perched himself, walked to the window and thrust his hands into his pockets for a contemplative moment, then he turned and came to a stand squarely before Melanie, looking down on her with his quizzical, honest eyes.

“That depends, Melanie,” he said slowly, “upon whether you are going to marry me or not.”

[Illustration:  “That depends upon whether you are going to marry me.”]

For a second or two Melanie’s eyes refused to lift; but Aleck’s firm-planted figure, his steady gaze, above all, his dominating will, forced her to look up.  There he was, smiling, strong, big, kindly.  Melanie started to smile, but for the second time that morning her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears.

“I can’t talk to you towering over me like that,” she said at last softly, her smile winning against the tears.