Honey ended every discussion with a philosophic, “Aside from the question of brutality, this marriage by capture isn’t a sporting proposition.  It’s like jacking deer.  I’m not for it.  And, O Lord, what’s the use of chewing the rag so much about it?  Wait a while.  We’ll get them yet, I betchu!”

All of Honey’s sex-pride flared in this buoyant assurance.  It had apparently not yet occurred to him that he would not conquer Lulu in the end and conquer her by merely submitting to her wooing of him.

And in the meantime, the voiceless tete-a-teteing of the five couples continued.

“Say, Ralph,” Honey said one day in a calm interval, “it’s just occurred to me that we haven’t seen those girls, flying in a bunch for quite some time.  Don’t suppose they’ve quarrelled, do you?”

Everybody stopped work to stare at him.  “I bet that’s the answer,” Ralph exclaimed.  His voice held the note of one for whom a private mystification has at last broken.

“But what do you suppose they’ve quarrelled about?” Pete Murphy asked.

“Me,” Honey said promptly.

Ralph laughed absent-mindedly.  “It’s a hundred to one shot that they’re quarrelling about us, though,” he said.  For some mysterious reason this theory raised his spirits perceptibly.

“But — to get down to brass tacks,” Pete asked in a puzzled tone, “what have we done to make them quarrel?”

“Oh, we’ve done nothing,” Ralph answered with one of his lordly assumptions of a special knowledge.  It’s just the disorganization that always falls on women when men appear on their horizon.  They’re absolutely without sex-loyalty, you know.  They seem to have principle enough in regard to some things, a few things.  But the moment a man appears, it’s all off.  West of Suez, they’ll lie and steal; east of Suez, they’ll betray and murder as easy as breathe.”

“Cut that out, Addington,” Pete Murphy commanded in a dangerous voice.  “I won’t stand for that kind of talk.”

Ralph glared.  “Won’t stand for it?” he repeated.  “I’d like to know how the hell you’re going to help yourself?”

“I’ll find a way, and pretty damned quick,” Pete retorted.

It was the closest approach to a quarrel that had yet occurred.  The other three men hastily threw themselves into the breach.  “Shut up, you mick,” Honey called to Pete.  “Remember you came over in the steerage.”

Pete grinned and subsided.

“As sure as shooting,” Honey said, “those girls have quarrelled.  I bet we never see them again.”

It was a long time before they saw any of them; but, curiously enough, the next time the flying-girls visited the island they came in a group.

It had been sultry, the first of a long series of sticky, muggy days.  What threatened to be a thunderstorm and then, as Honey said, failed to “make good,” came up in the afternoon.  Just as the sky was at its blackest, Honey called, “Hurroo!  Here they come!”