there to have that--your Japanese--serve me with at least a sandwich?"

"Mademoiselle," cried Jack, apologetically, "you can't have the faintest
idea how sorry I am that my instructions are what they are I feel wicked
as I look at your distress, but it is simply wholly impossible for me to
ask you below. I can have food served to you on deck, however."

"What? Eat here before the eyes of all Spruce Beach? And have it made
perfectly plain to every onlooker that I am not welcome here?" cried the
woman spy, reproachfully.

"Oh, but, indeed, you are welcome here," protested Jack. "As welcome as
I am permitted to make anyone. My orders, you know--I am a slave to
those orders."

"Yet there is some one aboard," urged Mlle. Nadiboff, in her most
pleading voice, while there was an almost tearful look in her pretty
eyes, "some one who can change the orders. Your Mr. Farnum, I take it.
Go to him, won't you, and plead with him for me? Go!"

One of her little, gloved hands rested on his arm, pushing gently.

But Jack Benson, though she made him feel inwardly at odds with himself,
thought more of his duty than of anything else.

"I am very sorry--awfully sorry, Mlle. Nadiboff. But won't you
understand that what you ask is wholly impossible?"

"Good-bye, then!" she said, resentfully, though gently, half turning
from him.