In the drama of life it is often the least important actors who are happiest, and the stars themselves are not always to be the most envied.  Florence, torn between her ambition and her love, knew what it was to toss all night on her sleepless bed and wet the pillow with her tears.  De Souvary, who found himself every day deeper in the toils of his ravishing American, chafed and struggled with unavailing pangs; and as for Frank Rignold, he endured long periods of black depression as he watched from afar the steady progress of his rival’s suit; and his moody face grew moodier and exasperation rose within him to the rebellion point.

By September the two yachts were lying in Cowes, and already there was some talk of winter plans and a possible voyage to India.  The count was enthusiastic about the project, as he was about anything that could keep him and Florence together, and he had ordered a stack of books and spent hours at a time with the mistress of the Minnehaha reading over Indian Ocean directories and plotting imaginary courses on the chart.

With the prospect of so extended a trip before him, Frank found much to be done in the engine-room, for their suggested cruise would be likely to carry them far out of the beaten track, and he had to be prepared for all contingencies.  A marine engine requires to be perpetually tinkered, and an engineer’s duty is not only to run it, but to make good the little defects and breakdowns that are constantly occurring.  Frank was a daily visitor at the local machine-shop, and his business engagements with Mr. Derwent, the proprietor, led insensibly to others of the social kind.

Derwent’s house was close by his works, and Frank’s trips ashore soon began to take in both.  Derwent had a daughter, a black-haired, black-eyed, pink-cheeked girl, named Cassie, one of those vigorous young English beauties that men would call stunning and women bold.  She did not wait for any preliminaries, but straightway fell in love with the handsome American engineer that her father brought home.  She made her regard so plain that Frank was embarrassed, and was not a bit put off at his reluctance to play the part she assigned to him.

“That’s always my luck,” she remarked with disarming candour, “a poor silly fool who always likes them that don’t like me and spurns them that do!” And then she added, with a laugh, that he ought to be tied up, “for you are a cruel handsome man, Frank, and my heart goes pitapat at the very sight of you!”

She called him Frank at the second visit; and at the third seated herself on the arm of his chair and took his hand and held it.

“Can’t you ever forget that girl in Yankee-land?” she said.  “She ain’t here, is she, and why shouldn’t you steal a little harmless fun?  There’s men who’d give their little finger to win a kiss from me—­and you sit there so glum and solemn, who could have a bushel for the asking!”

For all Frank’s devotion to Florence he could not but be flattered at being wooed in this headlong fashion.  He was only a man after all, and she was the prettiest girl in port.  He did not resist when she suddenly put her arms around him and pressed his head against her bosom, calling him her boy and her darling; but remained passive in her embrace, pleased and yet ashamed, and touched to the quick with self-contempt.