“Wouldn’t it be better to wait?”

“I can’t!  I’m on this ship without a ticket.  I’ve got to go down in a minute and tell the purser that.  Maybe he’ll throw me overboard; maybe he’ll lock me up.  I don’t know what they do with people like me.  Maybe they’ll make a stoker of me.  And then I shall have to stoke, with no chance of seeing you again.  So that’s why I want to say now—­I’m sorry I have such a keen imagination.  It carried me away—­really it did!  I didn’t mean to deceive you with those letters; but, once I got started—­ You know, don’t you, that I love you with all my heart?  From the moment you came into the Carlton that morning I—­”

“Really—­Mr.—­Mr.—­”

“West—­Geoffrey West.  I adore you!  What can I do to prove it? 
I’m going to prove it—­before this ship docks in the North River. 
Perhaps I’d better talk to your father, and tell him about the
Agony Column and those seven letters—­”

“You’d better not!  He’s in a terribly bad humor.  The dinner was awful, and the steward said we’d be looking back to it and calling it a banquet before the voyage ends.  Then, too, poor dad says he simply can not sleep in the stateroom they’ve given him—­”

“All the better!  I’ll see him at once.  If he stands for me now he’ll stand for me any time!  And, before I go down and beard a harsh-looking purser in his den, won’t you believe me when I say I’m deeply in love—­”

“In love with mystery and romance!  In love with your own remarkable powers of invention!  Really, I can’t take you seriously—­”

“Before this voyage is ended you’ll have to.  I’ll prove to you that I care.  If the purser lets me go free—­”

“You have much to prove,” the girl smiled.  “To-morrow—­when Mrs. Tommy Gray introduces us—­I may accept you—­as a builder of plots.  I happen to know you are good.  But—­as—­ It’s too silly!  Better go and have it out with that purser.”

Reluctantly he went.  In five minutes he was back.  The girl was still standing by the rail.

“It’s all right!” West said.  “I thought I was doing something original, but there were eleven other people in the same fix.  One of them is a billionaire from Wall Street.  The purser collected some money from us and told us to sleep on the deck—­if we could find room.”

“I’m sorry,” said the girl.  “I rather fancied you in the role of stoker.”  She glanced about her at the dim deck.  “Isn’t this exciting?  I’m sure this voyage is going to be filled with mystery and romance.”

“I know it will be full of romance,” West answered.  “And the mystery will be—­can I convince you—­”

“Hush!” broke in the girl.  “Here comes father!  I shall be very happy to meet you—­to-morrow.  Poor dad! he’s looking for a place to sleep.”

Five days later poor dad, having slept each night on deck in his clothes while the ship plowed through a cold drizzle, and having starved in a sadly depleted dining saloon, was a sight to move the heart of a political opponent.  Immediately after a dinner that had scarcely satisfied a healthy Texas appetite he lounged gloomily in the deck chair which was now his stateroom.  Jauntily Geoffrey West came and sat at his side.