"Oh, I don't pretend for a moment," crooned the persuasive voice, "that I've got just the crowd on board that I would have chosen for this particular sort of get-away. Nevertheless----" With a chuckle that would have been brutal if it had not been so exultant he bent down and brushed his lips across Daphne's throbbing temple. "Nevertheless," he chuckled, "of all the crowds that ever crowded anybody, this one represents perhaps the one most ready to eat from my hand. I haven't got much sense, it seems, nor yet a long life, but what I have got," he [167] laughed out suddenly, "I've got for fair! And that's money!" In a silence that was almost sinister he stood for an instant staring off at the house-boat's gay-lanterned outline against the dark fluttery palms. "Thought they'd yank me back from all this did they?" he questioned hotly. "Back to an old Board Meeting in a New York snow-storm? Not much! 'If you want your damned old library,' I wired 'em, 'come ahead down here and thrash it out where a fellow can argue without frost biting his tongue, and be catching a tarpon or two on the side at the same time.' Wired 'em tickets and everything, the whole damned outfit, architect and all! Heap-sight easier though than going back to New York! But if I don't want to give 'em the library," he grinned with sudden malice, "I don't have to, you know--even now! There's nothing in my father's will, I mean, that compels me to give it. My father's will merely suggests that I give it, advises me to give it, 'with such subsequent moneys,' he quoted mockingly, 'as may comprise my estate' at the time I cash in. But of all the big stiffs," he shuddered, "that I ever saw, [168] Claudia Merriwayne leads them all, not even excepting her new Dean or her Oldest Trustee!" "Claudia--Merriwayne?" gasped Daphne. "Oh, of course, in my day," persisted Kaire, "I have had grace at my table, and some disgrace now and then! But Greek? And Latin? and Doric columns? And the 'influence of concrete on young character?' _Why where are you_?" he turned and called suddenly through the darkness. Gropingly his arms reached out and snatched her to him again, and for the first time she yielded limply, and lay like a bruised rose against his breast. "Why, I can't even hear you breathing!" he cried. "Why, you might be dead, you are so still! And your little hands are like ice! And----" "Did--you--say--that--that Miss Claudia Merriwayne--was on that boat out there--with you?" faltered Daphne. "Why, yes," shrugged the man, "I think that's the lady's name. Why--why, shouldn't she be there? All the colleges are closed now, aren't they, for the Christmas holidays? Why, surely you don't mean that you care?" he [169] laughed. "That you don't like my having the dame?" "_Care_?" hooted Daphne. Like a wraith suddenly electrified all the fire, the nerve, the sparkle, the recklessness came surging back to her!