She paused. "But the ocean doesn't smile." "But it does. Smiles and frowns, and roars and coos, and coaxes and threatens, and strikes and caresses, and leaps and rolls--and so many other things. I've seen it. And Captain Blaise will tell you the same." She looked strangely at me. In the deep sea I had seen, at times, that deep dark blue of her eyes--ultramarine, they call it; but hers softer. I almost told her so, but I was afraid. She looked away and repeated softly: "'The Western Ocean smiled that night--Sweetheart, 'twas a dream of thee!'" It's pretty, but more like what men who cruise for pleasure would write. You're a sailor--have taken a sailor's chances. Why don't you write like a sailor? It is a sad sea, a terrible sea, despite all your beautiful blue Trades. Why don't you write of the tragic sea?" "I knew that some time you would say something like that. I've seen it in your eyes before." "You have?" "Why, many times. And so, here." And from between the pages of Captain Blaise's book of verse I drew another sheet. At that time I would have been ashamed to let anybody else see these things, but I did not mind her. "Here," I said, "is one I felt. One night in the Caribbean we were caught in a tornado, and we thought--Captain Blaise said afterward he thought so too--that we had stood our last watch. And at the height of it--we could do nothing but stand by--one of the crew, a young fellow--I was only sixteen years old myself then--said to me, 'Oh, Master Guy, what will she say when she hears?' He meant his young wife. He'd been married just before we put out, and she'd come down to the ship to see him off. So listen: "'The spray, most-like, was in my eyes, He waved his hand to me-- The wind it blew a gale that day When he sailed out to sea.'" "Ah-h!" She leaned closer. "It _was_ a gale the day we put out. We had to get out--in Charleston Harbor it was--and they were hot after us--gale or no gale, Captain Blaise put out. I'm trying to imagine what she would think when she heard. "'And now no spray is in my eyes, No hand is waved to me-- But all the gales of time shall blow Ere he comes back from sea!'" "And she a bride! Oh-h, the poor girl!" She had leaned over my shoulder to read it for herself, and her breath was on my cheek. "That is why, if I had--a wife, I should dread the sea." "And that is why a woman--But how long have you been writing poetry?" "Poetry? Or rhyme? Never before the day I saw you." "But when did such ideas before take hold of you?"