"If I know you, Tom, you'll suffer that and more, should the event
prove she is mistaken as to the nature of her present feeling."

"What of it?" muttered Blake, with a look that told the other the
uselessness of persuasion. "Think I'd let her marry me, long as
there's a shadow of a chance of her being mistaken?"

"Very well, then," replied his friend. "You've said your say. Now I'll
say mine. I can ease the tedium of Miss Leslie's trip up the coast;
and I stand ready to do so--on two conditions. In the first place;
you're to come aboard and stay aboard. After I find a chaperon for her
at Aden, you're to go on home with me, to visit at Ruthby."

"Excuse _me!_" said Blake. "I can see myself parading around your
ancestral stone-heap with your ducal dad!"

"You not only can, but will," rejoined the earl. "Come now. You'll be
allowed to write that note at Port Mozambique, and keep in covert till
Miss Leslie is safe off the ship. But you'll do the rest--you'll not
stay here. Another thing--you have my word for it now--I shall
endeavor no more than yourself to win her, until after she has
returned to her home in the States."

"Lord, Jimmy! that's square--to me, I mean. But how about her?"

"No fear," reassured the Englishman. "She's received everywhere. She's
been presented--at Court, y'know. If she stays over on this side a
bit, there'll be dozens of 'em dancing attendance on her. Come, now;
it's all settled."