and a man to manage them who can talk to them like a Dutch uncle
is what he has always needed. He liked you, and he'll be glad to
get you."

He was a good friend, that Poor Jr., you see, and I shook the
hand that he offered me very hard, knowing how great would have
been his embarrassment had I embraced him in our own fashion.

"And perhaps you will sail on the 'Princess Irene,' after all,"
I cried.

"No," he shook his head sadly, "it will not happen. I have not
been worth it."



Chapter Seven


That Naples of mine is like a soiled coronet of white gems,
sparkling only from far away. But I love it altogether, near or
far, and my heart would have leaped to return to it for its own
sake, but to come to it as we did, knowing that the only lady in
the world was there. . . . Again, this is one of those things I
possess no knowledge how to tell, and that those who know do
know. How I had longed for the time to come, how I had feared
it, how I had made pictures of it!

Yet I feared not so much as my friend, for he had a dim, small
hope, and I had none. How could I have? I--a man whose head