He ran through the brief document.

“Yes; it’s just as well that I should know.  I’ll leave a copy.”

Something in his accent made her scrutinize him.

“You’re going into danger!” she cried.

“Danger?  No; I think not.  Difficulty, perhaps.  But I think it can be put through.”

“If it were dangerous, you’d do it just the same,” she said, almost accusingly.

“It would be worth some danger now to get you away from greater danger later.  See here, Miss Brewster”—­he rose and stood over her—­“there must be no mistake or misunderstanding about this.”

“Don’t gloom at me with those awful glasses,” she said fretfully.  “I feel as if I were being stared at by a hidden person.”

He disregarded the protest.

“If I get this message through, can you guarantee that your father will take out the yacht as soon as the Dutch send word to him?”

“Oh, yes.  He will do that.  How are you going to deliver the message?”

Again her words might as well not have been spoken.

“You’d better have your luggage ready for a quick start.”

“Will it be soon?”

“It may be.”

“How shall we know?”

“I will get word to you.”

“Bring it?”

He shook his head.

“No; I fear not.  This is good-bye.”

“You’re very casual about it,” she said, aggrieved.  “At least, it would be polite to pretend.”

“What am I to pretend?”

“To be sorry.  Aren’t you sorry?  Just a little bit?”

“Yes; I’m sorry.  Just a little bit—­at least.”

“I’m most awfully sorry myself,” she said frankly.  “I shall miss you.”

“As a curiosity?” he asked, smiling.

“As a friend.  You have been a friend to us—­to me,” she amended sweetly.  “Each time I see you, I have more the feeling that you’ve been more of a friend than I know.”

“‘That which thy servant is,’” he quoted lightly.  But beneath the lightness she divined a pain that she could not wholly fathom.  Quite aware of her power, Miss Polly Brewster was now, for one of the few times in her life, stricken with contrition for her use of it.

“And I—­I haven’t been very nice,” she faltered.  “I’m afraid” sometimes I’ve been quite horrid.”

“You?  You’ve been ‘the glory and the dream.’  I shall be needing memories for a while.  And when the glory has gone, at least the dream will remain—­tethered.”

“But I’m not going to be a dream alone,” she said, with wistful lightness.  “It’s far too much like being a ghost.  I’m going to be a friend, if you’ll let me.  And I’m going to write to you, if you will tell me where.  You won’t find it so very easy to make a mere memory of me.  And when you come home—­When are you coming home?”

He shook his head.

“Then you must find out, and let me know.  And you must come and visit us at our summer place, where there’s a mountain-side that we can sit on, and you can pretend that our lake is the Caribbean and hate it to your heart’s content—­”