“No,” she answered, “it was my fault. I’m a proud devil, Robin, and what you said about Hartley and ... and ... other women, Robin, hurt and ... and made me angry. No, no, don’t apologize again. You and I are old enough friends, my dear, to tell one another the truth. You made me angry because what you said was true. I _was_ selling myself, selling myself with my eyes open, too, and you’ve got a perfect right never to speak to me again ...” She did not finish the sentence but broke off. Her voice died away quaveringly. Robin took her hand in his. “Dear,” he said, “don’t cry! It’s over and done with now ...” Mary shook herself with an angry gesture. “What’s the good of telling me not to cry?” she protested tearfully; “I’ve disgraced myself in my own eyes as well as in yours. If you can’t forget what I was ready to do, I never shall ...” Very gently the young man turned the girl towards him. “I’m not such a prig as all that,” he said. “We all make mistakes. You know I understand the position you were in. Parrish is dead. I shall forget the rest ...” Slowly the girl withdrew her hands from his grasp. “Yes,” she said wearily, “you will find it easy to forget!” She drew her fur closer about her neck and turned her back on the sea. “I must go down,” she said. And waited for the man to stand aside. He did not move and their eyes met. Suddenly, like a child, she buried her face in her arm flung out across his chest. She began to sob bitterly. “That afternoon ... in the billiard-room ...” she sobbed, “you will forget ... that ... too ... I suppose ...” Robin took her face in his hands, a hot, tear-stained face, and detached it from the sheltering arm. “My dear,” he said, “I shall have to try to forget it. But I know I shan’t succeed. To the end of my life I shall remember the kiss you gave me. But we are farther apart than ever now!” There was a great sadness in his voice. It arrested the girl’s attention as he dropped his hands and turned back to the rail. “Why?” she said in a low voice, without looking up. “Because,” replied the young man steadily, “you’re rich now, Mary ...” The girl looked up quickly. “Will men ever understand women?” she cried, a new note in her voice. She stepped forward and, putting her two hands on the young man’s shoulders, swung him round to face her. “I’m as poor as ever I was,” she said, “for Hartley Parrish’s money is not for me ...” “Mary!” exclaimed the young man joyfully. “Robin Greve,” cried the girl, “do you mean to tell me you’d stand there thinking I’d accept money made like that ...” But now she was in his arms. With a little fluttering sigh she yielded to his kiss. “Oh, the man on the bridge!...” she murmured with her woman’s instinct for the conventions. “Come behind the boat, then!” commanded Robin. And in the shadow of a weather-stained davit he kissed her again. “So you’ll wait for me, after all, Mary?”