"Sorry? Indeed! La, la!" She gave a dainty French shrug of her bare shoulders and tossed her head. "I summon my pride. My spirit is aroused. I rejoice; I laugh; I sing! Sorry? Pooh!" Then she melted with an impulsiveness rare in her, saying, "Tell me all about it, please; tell me everything." He held her slender hand. "This morning I was bluer than a tatooed man, but to-night I am in the clouds, for I have overcome the greatest obstacle that stands between us. It is only a question of months now until I can come to your father with sufficient means to satisfy him. Of course, there are chances of failure, but I don't admit them. I have such a superabundance of courage now that I can't imagine defeat." "Do you know," she said, hesitatingly, "you have never told me anything about this plan of yours? You have never takes me into your confidence in the slightest degree." "I didn't think you would care to know the details, dear. This is so entirely a business matter. It is so sordidly commonplace, and you are so very far removed from sordid things that I didn't think you would care to hear of it. My mind won't associate you with commercialism. I have always burned incense to you; I have always seen you in shaded light and through the smoke of altar fires, so to speak." "I realize that I don't appreciate the things that you have done," said the girl, "but I should like to know more about this new adventure." "I warn you, it is not romantic," he smiled, "although to me anything which brings me closer to you is invested with the very essence of romance." He told her briefly of his enterprise and the difficulties he had conquered. "It looks like plain sailing now," he concluded. "I will have to work hard, but that just suits me, for it will occupy the time while I am away from you. There will be no mail or communication with the outside world after we sail, except at long intervals. But I am sure you will feel the messages I shall send you every hour." "And so you are going to put fish into little tin cans?" said Mildred. "Very prosy, isn't it?" "Of course, you will have men to do it. You won't do that sort of thing yourself?" "Assuredly not. There will be some hundreds of Chinese." "Will you have to catch the fish? Will you pull on a long fish-line? I should think that would be rather nice." "No," he laughed. "At any rate, you will wear oilskins and a 'sou'wester,' won't you?" "Yes, just like the pictures you see on bill-boards." She meditated for an instant. "Why don't you build a railroad or do something such as father does? He makes a great deal of money out of railroads." "He is also a director in the largest packing concern at the Stock Yards," Boyd reminded her. "This is much the same sort of thing."