sailor, than the praise of all the Lords of the Admiralty, if it could
be got. You see, I always was ambitious; I was certain I'd be a captain;
I swore I'd be an admiral one day; and I fell in love with the best girl
in the world, and said I'd not give up thinking I would marry her until
and unless I saw her wearing another man's name--and I don't know that
I should even then."

"Now that sounds complicated--or wicked," she said, her face turned away
from him.

"Believe me, it is not complicated; and men marry widows sometimes."

"You are shocking," she said, turning on him with a flush to her cheek
and an angry glitter in her eye. "How dare you speak so cold-bloodedly
and thoughtlessly?"

"I am not cold-blooded or thoughtless, nor yet shocking. I only speak
what is in my mind with my usual crudeness. I know it sounds insolent of
me, but, after all, it is only being bold with the woman for whom--half-
disgraced, insignificant, but unquenchable fellow as I am--I'd do as much
as, and, maybe, dare more for than any one of the men who would marry her
if they could."

"I like ambitious men," she said relenting, and meditatively pushing
the grass with her tennis-racket; "but ambition isn't everything, is it?
There must be some kind of fulfilment to turn it into capital, as it
were. Don't let me hurt your feelings, but you haven't done a great
deal yet, have you?"

"No, I haven't. There must be occasion. The chance to do something big