She smiled up at him.

"Happy, are you?"

Her sigh was a benediction--an ecstatic surety that she was youth
and beauty now as much as she would ever know. For another
instant life was radiant and time a phantom and their strength
eternal--then there was a bumping, scraping sound as the rowboat
scraped alongside.

Up the ladder scrambled the two gray-haired men, the officer and
two of the sailors with their hands on their revolvers. Mr.
Farnam folded his arms and stood looking at his niece.

"So," he said nodding his head slowly.

With a sigh her arms unwound from Carlyle's neck, and her eyes,
transfigured and far away, fell upon the boarding party. Her
uncle saw her upper lip slowly swell into that arrogant pout he
knew so well.

"So," he repeated savagely. "So this is your idea of--of romance.
A runaway affair, with a high-seas pirate."

Ardita glanced at him carelessly.

"What an old fool you are!" she said quietly.

"Is that the best you can say for yourself?"