I shall have had my day.

Let the sweet heavens endure,
Not close and darken above me
Before I am quite quite sure
That there is one to love me....'"

This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He
could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big
and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and
took her hand.

"There is something," he began in a low voice, "which I have been
trying to say ever since we met, something which I think you must have
read in my eyes."

Her head was bent. She did not withdraw her hand.

"Until this voyage began," he went on, "I did not know what life meant.
And then I saw you! It was like the gate of heaven opening. You're the
dearest girl I ever met, and you can bet I'll never forget...." He
stopped. "I'm not trying to make it rhyme," he said apologetically.
"Billie, don't think me silly ... I mean ... if you had the merest notion,
dearest ... I don't know what's the matter with me ... Billie, darling, you
are the only girl in the world! I have been looking for you for years
and years and I have found you at last, my soul-mate. Surely this does
not come as a surprise to you? That is, I mean, you must have seen that
I've been keen ... There's that damned Walt Mason stuff again!" His eyes
fell on the volume beside him and he uttered an exclamation of
enlightenment. "It's those poems!" he cried. "I've been boning them up