"
"Why not?"
"He thinks you like me too much."
"What do _you_ think?"
Percival bit his lip the moment he had asked it, but leaning there on
the railing, with her dancing eyes on a level with his own, and nothing
else on the entire horizon, it was difficult to keep the situation in
hand.
"I think you are getting a bully tan," she said, scrutinizing him
closely; "most men get a red nose or else they get all speckled around
the edges. Yours looks like a nice crust on an apple pie."
"I do tan rather decently," he said; "but you haven't told me what you
think."
"What about?"
"About my liking you too much."
"I think the captain exaggerated."
"He couldn't exaggerate that."
"But how can you like me when I'm all wrong?"
"I like you because of your possibilities. You've probably never met any
one before who understood you as I do. Quite extraordinary the way
you've improved since you came on board."
"And you've got fourteen days more to work on me! Do you think anybody
will recognize me when I get back to Wyoming?"
"Now you are chaffing!" complained Percival. "You never take me
seriously."
"Then you want me to be serious, and believe everything you say?"
He paused in awed contemplation of the direful consequences if she
should, but for the life of him he couldn't stop.
"I want you to believe me," he said tenderly, "when I say that you've
been most awfully sweet, and that I wouldn't give half a sovereign for
any other girl's chances if you were within ten miles.
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