Two Frenchmen, who were sipping coffee and absinthe at an adjoining table, broke at this moment into lively expressions of admiration at sight of a young girl coming up from the quay. "Look well, Jules! Is she not ravishing, the little English girl? She is English assuredly; no French girl so pretty as that would be promenading about all alone. It is not often that the English have such pretty feet. But, _sapristi_, what a dress! It is rather like a blue-bag than a gown! These English girls have no coquetry!" The object of their remarks was none other than Laline Garth, fresh from a long swim out to sea, her loose auburn hair drying on her shoulders in the sun, the low, level rays of which shone in her soft, dark eyes and lit up the bright tints of her cheeks and lips. Hers was the _beauté du diable_ which nothing can spoil--not even shapeless gowns, ill-fitting silk-gloves, and a Zulu hat which cost fifty centimes--the sparkling evanescent loveliness of a child merging into a maiden. Wallace Armstrong turned in his seat at the Frenchman's words and looked fixedly under his level, black brows at Laline as she climbed the hill with swift, springing steps. "Garth," he said, suddenly, "I've made up my mind to take your advice. And I'll marry your daughter Laline." CHAPTER III. Captain Garth's second _petit verre_ of cognac almost dropped from his fingers on its way to his lips in his astonishment at his young friend's proposition. "Laline," he repeated, blankly--"you marry Laline? Why, man, she's a child--a baby!" "She is sixteen," Armstrong repeated, coolly, "and she'd look older if you dressed her properly. French girls of all classes marry at sixteen." "So do English-factory-hands!" Garth broke in, bluntly. "But the daughters of English gentlemen haven't left the schoolroom at that age."