spoke:

"You understand that this was a case of odious persecution, don't you? I
became aware of it and--"

It was a view which the sympathetic Davidson was capable of
appreciating.

"I am not surprised to hear it," he said placidly. "Odious enough, I
dare say. And you, of course--not being a married man--were free to step
in. Ah, well!"

He sat down in the stern-sheets, and already had the steering lines in
his hands when Heyst observed abruptly:

"The world is a bad dog. It will bite you if you give it a chance; but I
think that here we can safely defy the fates."

When relating all this to me, Davidson's only comment was:

"Funny notion of defying the fates--to take a woman in tow!"




CHAPTER SEVEN


Some considerable time afterwards--we did not meet very often--I asked
Davidson how he had managed about the shawl and heard that he had