There were several attractive men, all yachtsmen, straight-backed, squarely set, good-looking young chaps, but Cécile scarcely saw one of them. As the minutes passed and she continued to watch the poet, there began to develop within her the same peculiar obsession of which she had been the prey after her visit to the _Daffodil_. This time it was stronger and tinged with a warmer personal interest. At Halifax, Old Point Comfort, and again that afternoon, when the mail had come aboard, she had received an offering of verse. The Halifax poem, which had been mailed from Shoal Harbour, had impressed her deeply, less in its execution than in the thought conveyed, which was of an intensity that thrilled her. The realisation of the long sea-miles which the little yawl had covered, the long sea-watches which the man opposite must have spent, the fog, wind, rain, and calms ... all of the details of an offshore voyage in a little shallop like the _Daffodil_ ... merely to be near the object of his adoration, herself. There was a mediæval romanticism about this steadfast devotion which took powerful hold of the sentimental side of Cécile's nature. Before the dinner was half over Applebo's attraction for her had reached a point where it appeared to monopolise her whole consciousness. She lost interest in her food; her conversation diminished, and what she said was abstracted. She was trying to get sufficient possession of herself to request Wood, in a casual way, to bring the poet over to their table, but was almost afraid of betraying the state of her emotions. These were such as most girls experience during their first season. She longed to hear the deep, resonant, purring voice, but felt that if he spoke to her she would make herself ridiculous. Hermione, facing her, observed enough of this suppressed agitation to arouse her to an ironic amusement. "Look at Cécile!" said she. "I warned her not to try to hypnotise the Pilot-fish. Now he has hypnotised her!" Had Hermione known the actual state of her sister's feelings she would never, of course, have thus cruelly directed the general attention upon her. Instead, however, she ascribed Cécile's schoolgirl manner to curiosity and the mistaken idea that she was the object of the Pilot-fish's assiduity. Consequently she was a little startled at the sudden flame in her sister's cheeks and the resentment in her eyes when the others began to laugh. Cécile, for the moment, lost her poise. "It's all very well to laugh," said she, vexedly, "but if you had been bombarded by verse as _I_ have by our friend yonder, you might exhibit a certain amount of curiosity also!" Hermione's eyes opened very wide. She instantly understood the situation. Applebo, then, had been sending verses addressed to "Miss Cécile Bell," intended for herself, Hermione, and most naturally appropriated by her sister. She was filled by a sudden gust of anger. Captain Bell, however, was staring at Cécile.