Through every quiver of his overwrought nerves he sensed the strange almost psychic change come over her, a brighter gold to the hair, a deeper blue to the eyes, a quicker pulse in the slender throat. Every tender line of her thrown suddenly into italics, every minor chord crashing into crescendo! If she had been beautiful in the rompish escapade of the beach, and the single wistful silence of the moment before, her beauty was absolutely maddening to him now. With a little quick cry that was almost like a challenge she reached up and touched him on the shoulder. It was her first caress. "Oh, all right! I'll go with you!" she cried excitedly. "But on one condition only!" "A hundred conditions!" quickened the man, "so long as you make them before we start!" "It's about our 'start' that I'm making this [170] one!" cried Daphne. Her flesh was flaming with blushes but neither her heart nor her mind knew just why she blushed. "It's--it's about your drunkenness!" she flamed. "After we're man and wife, with my faults as well as yours, we'll have to do the best we can, think it out, fight it out, maybe we can get somebody to help us! But until we're man and wife, I must not be embarrassed--or humiliated! Badness that knows that it's badness, that's one thing! But silliness that doesn't know it's silliness, I just couldn't stand it, that's all!" Shrewdly her young eyes narrowed to his. "You're--you're quite right what you said on the beach just now! No one can guarantee his ending! But it's an awful goose, Sheridan Kaire, who doesn't guarantee his start! So if I pledge you, Sheridan Kaire," flamed the proud little face, "that once started I _will_ see the whole thing through, it is pledged on the understanding that you will protect the--the dignity of that start?" Across the man's impatient face a dark unhappy flush showed suddenly. [171] "I get you!" he said. "I will be very careful about my drinking." "But as to a pledge from you," cried Daphne, "that you wouldn't back out and make a fool of _me_--why, it just never would have occurred to me to ask it! It doesn't occur to me even now! Why--why should you make a fool of me?" she questioned. "Why, how could you make a fool of me? You love me, don't you?" she triumphed. "I--love--you," said the man. "Oh, all right, then!" cried Daphne. "'Nuff said! Let's go!" Snatching a silver whistle from his white flannel pocket the man blew sharply once--twice--three times. Simultaneously with the signal a slight commotion was visible on the house-boat. "They'll be over for us right away," said the man. "Just as soon as they can get the little boat launched." With her small hand slipped into his, Daphne stood pawing the sand like a pony while she watched the operations. "Will it be--_my_ house-boat?" she thrilled. [172] "It will be your house-boat," smiled the man. "And my gay lanterns?" danced Daphne. "And your gay lanterns," smiled the man. "And my money?" cried Daphne. "And my library?"