She answered by another question.

"How old are you?"

"Forty-two, if you must know."

"Oh! And you are going to fall in love with a girl of nineteen."

"Who is that?"

"Myself!" she said, giving him her hand and smiling at him
with her rich red lips.

The mizen hid them from the man at the wheel, and the twilight
of tropical stars held the main-deck. Blunt felt the breath
of this strange woman warm on his cheek, her eyes seemed to wax and wane,
and the hard, small hand he held burnt like fire.

"I believe you are right," he cried. "I am half in love with you already."

She gazed at him with a contemptuous sinking of her heavily fringed eyelids,
and withdrew her hand.

"Then don't get to the other half, or you'll regret it."

"Shall I?" asked Blunt. "That's my affair. Come, you little vixen,
give me that kiss you said I was going to ask you for below,"
and he caught her in his arms.

In an instant she had twisted herself free, and confronted him