He hated the Count. He resented every look that those dissolute eyes
flashed at the girl, and he noticed many. He saw Opal wince sometimes,
and then turn pale. Yet she did not resent the offense.

But Paul did.

"Such a look from a man like that is the grossest insult to any woman,"
he thought, writhing in secret rage. "How can she permit it? If she were
my--my _sister_, I'd shoot him if he once dared to turn his damned eyes
in her direction!"

And thus matters stood throughout the brief voyage. Paul and Opal,
though conscious of the double barrier between them, tried to forget its
existence for the moment, and, at intervals, succeeded admirably.

For were they not in the spring-time of youth, and in love?

And Paul Zalenska talked to this girl as he had never talked to anyone
before--not even Paul Verdayne!

She brought out the latent best in him. She developed in him a quickness
of perception, a depth of thought and emotion, a facility of speech
which he had never known. She stimulated every faculty, and gave him new
incentive--a new and firmer resolve to aspire and fight for all that he
held dear.

"I always feel," he said to Opal, once, "as though my soul stood always
at attention, awaiting the inevitable command of Fate! All Nature seems
to tell me at times that there is a purpose in my living, a work for me
to do, and I feel so thoroughly _alive_--so ready to listen to the call