A shadow of mystification passed over her wonderful face, yet she smiled with well-bred tolerance, saying: "You are quite droll." "Drollery is the brother of good fellowship," I replied, helping her across the reeling cabin. As I had feared, she went directly to my room where the door had swung back showing an empty bunk. "Why, he's up, after all," she glanced over her shoulder at me. "I believe he is," I idiotically affirmed. "But where?"--this more to herself. "Hiding, maybe," I ventured, taking a facetious squint about. "Hiding?" she asked, in mild surprise. "Er--playing a trick on us! He's a funny old dog at tricks!" "Funny old dog?" She drew slightly away from me. "Do you mean my father, Mr.--er?" "Jack," I prompted, more than ever embarrassed and wishing the ocean would come up and swallow me; for I realized, alas, that my gods, by whom I was reasonably well remembered in so far as concerned physique, had been shamelessly remiss in their bestowal of brains. "Jack?" she slowly repeated. "What an odd name!" This made me feel queer. "Where do you live," I asked, "that you think it's an odd name? The States are crawling with Jacks! It's even the Democratic emblem!" Her perplexity was fast approaching alarm when we heard a muffled report above, followed by a trembling of the yacht. Someone called an order that sounded far away in the wind. "Hold tight," I said, "while I see if anything's wrong!" But I did not leave her side, knowing exactly what had happened. We had snapped our mainsheet, that was all; letting the boom swing out and putting us in the trough of the waves where we might expect a few wobbly minutes until the sailors could work in a new line. There was no danger and I reassured her at once, but she merely asked: "Was my father on deck?" "I didn't look," I answered, wondering why she thought I knew. "Won't you see?" Her patience was becoming exhausted. "I'm crazy to. But first let me help you back--you can't make it alone!" "Oh, yes, I can," she murmured. "I always make things alone!" I tried to fathom the meaning of this, but gave it up and started to go on deck. If I could take her father off to one side and explain, well and good. He would perhaps sympathize with my mistake when he understood that it was partially the result of a desire to fill Monsieur with spirits. Considering this, I spoiled everything by asking: "What does he look like?" "My father?" she gasped, in a wondering way. "No--yes--certainly not! I mean--oh, this is intolerable! I don't know your father, never saw him in my life--unless he was the one with you last night when you drove me frantic with that ball of paper trick! But what you did has nothing to do with my being here. I've not wilfully followed. A stupid boatman mistook your yacht for my own when I was--I mean to say, when I was too engrossed with the memory of you to notice his mistake."