"Hold on!" interrupted Grenville. "I haven't accepted your commission, much as the trip----" "The trip!" said Fenton. "Ah! that's the point! I insist on your making the trip, you see, and taking the rest. Fetching Elaine from China is merely incidental--only don't forget her completely and come back here empty-handed." He sat down to wrestle with his pipe. Grenville looked at him amusedly. "Now, see here," he said, "don't you make the slightest mistake, you confident old idiot. If I should just happen to fancy Elaine, I wouldn't give you twenty cents in Mexican money for your chances at the wedding bells and trimmings." "Then you'll go!" Fenton suddenly exploded, springing to his feet. "Come on, that's settled--shake." But Grenville retreated from the outstretched hand, a queer smile playing on his features. "Hang your infernal self-conceit," he answered; "you don't think I could win her if I tried." "I don't believe you'll try." "That isn't the point. I might. If I loved her I would, you can bet your final shoe peg! Your proposition isn't fair--subjecting a man, and a friend at that, to possible temptation, all kinds of treachery, and a war between love and duty. Rot that kind of duty! I want you to know that if I take the trip and happen to fall in this muddle with your girl, I'm going to pitch your infernal old duty game overboard in less than two seconds and go in and win her, if I can!" "Well, what's all the row about, after that?" inquired Fenton as before. "Haven't I said I accept your challenge? Go out there and fetch her, that's all. As for the rest--win her, if you can!" "I don't say I'll try to win the girl. I may not like her for a cent." "Then why all this futile argument and waste of valuable time?" "But I may--confound your egotistic nerve, and your insistence! And I warn you, Fen, I mean every word, in case----" "I understand--I understand you fully, without repetition," Fenton once more interrupted. "For Heaven's sake, give me your hand, old man, and cease firing." "You meant it, then--no strings on the proposition?" "Not a string--absolutely not a string." A strange new thrill of pleasure crept into Grenville's being, warming his thin, anaemic pulses suddenly, as he met Fenton's gaze and once more permitted his thoughts to dwell on all the proposal embraced. Since Fenton refused to be worried concerning himself and the girl who supplied the motive for the trip, then why should he consider it further? Elaine was, in fact, swiftly fading from his reflections. All his nature yearned towards the tropic seas. All his overwrought frame and substance ached for the long, lazy days of indolence, rest, and recuperation that alone could restore him to himself. He had always longed for precisely this excursion to the far-off edge of the sphere. His faculties leaped to the new-made possibility of a contact with the ancient world, heretofore so wholly inaccessible.