She was obliged to repeat the command with sharper authority before he obeyed. He lowered his eyes and stood before her, a voiceless suppliant. “Why did you do that?” she asked. It was not the contemptuous demand which he had been fearing. Her voice was so low that it was almost a whisper. “I don't know,” he confessed. The violin sang on; the moon shone in at the door; two strokes, like golden globules of sound, from the ship's bell signaled nine o'clock. Only the rhythm of the engines, as soothing as a cat's purring, and the slow roll of the yacht and the murmuring of the parted waves revealed that the _Olenia_ was on her way through the night. “I don't know,” he repeated. “It doesn't excuse me to say that I could not help it.” And he understood women so little that he did not realize that he was making the ages-old plea which has softened feminine rancor ever since the Sabine women were borne away in their captors' arms and forgave their captors. She stared at him, making once more a maiden's swift appraisal of this young man who had offered himself so humbly as a sacrifice. His brown hands were crossed in front of him and clutched convulsively his white cap. The cap and the linen above the collar of his uniform coat brought out to the full the hue of his manly tan. The red flush of his shocked contrition touched his cheeks, and, all in all, whatever the daughter of Julius Marston, Wall Street priest of high finance, may have thought of his effrontery, the melting look she gave him from under lowered eyelids indicated her appreciation of his outward excellencies. “I suppose you are thoroughly and properly ashamed of what you have done!” “I am ashamed--so ashamed that I shall never dare to raise my eyes to you again. I will do what I promised. I will jump overboard.” “Captain Mayo, look at me!” When he obeyed, with the demeanor of a whipped hound, his perturbation would not allow him to show as much appreciation of her as she had displayed in the secret study of him, which she now promptly concealed. He surveyed her wistfully, with fear. And a maiden, after she has understood that she has obtained mastery over brawn and soul, does not care to be looked at as if she were Medusa. She stole a side-glance at her face in one of the mirrors, and then tucked into place a vagrant lock of hair with a shapely finger, thereby suggesting, had there been a cynical observer present, that Miss Alma Marston never allowed any situation, no matter how crucial, to take her attention wholly from herself. There was no mistaking it--had that cynical observer been there, he would have noted that she pouted slightly when Mayo declared his unutterable shame. “You will never get over that shame, will you?” And Captain Mayo, feverishly anxious to show that he understood the enormity of his offense, and desiring to offer pledge for the future, declared that his shame would never lessen.