She recognised his condition out of a not inconsiderable experience and did her best to force the door shut, but he put his foot over the sill and smiled.

“Please go away, Mr. Lethway.”

“I’ll go if you’ll kiss me good night.”

She calculated the situation, and surrendered.  There was nothing else to do.  But when she upturned her face he slipped past her and into the room.  Just inside the door, swinging open and shut with every roll of the ship, he took her in his arms and kissed her, not once but many times.

She did not lose her head.  She had an arm free and she rang the bell.  Then she jerked herself loose.

“I have rung for the stewardess,” she said furiously.  “If you are here when she comes I’ll ask for help.”

“You young devil!” was all he said, and went, slamming the door behind him.  His rage grew as he reached his own cabin.  Damn the girl, anyhow!  He had not meant anything.  Here he was, spending money he might never get back to give her a chance, and she called the stewardess because he kissed her!

As for the girl, she went back to bed.  For a few moments sheer rage kept her awake.  Then youth and fatigue triumphed and she fell asleep.  Her last thought was of the boy, after all.  “He wouldn’t do a thing like that,” she reflected.  “He’s a gentleman.  He’s the real thing.  He’s——­”

Her eyes closed.

Lethway apologised the next day, apologised with an excess of manner that somehow made the apology as much of an insult as the act.  But she matched him at that game—­took her cue from him, even went him one better as to manner.  When he left her he had begun to feel that she was no unworthy antagonist.  The game would be interesting.  And she had the advantage, if she only knew it.  Back of his desire to get back at her, back of his mocking smile and half-closed eyes, he was just a trifle mad about her since the night before.

That is the way things stood when they reached the Mersey.  Cecil was in love with the girl.  Very earnestly in love.  He did not sleep at night for thinking about her.  He remembered certain semi-harmless escapades of his college days, and called himself unworthy and various other things.  He scourged himself by leaving her alone in her steamer chair and walking by at stated intervals.  Once, in a white sweater over a running shirt, he went to the gymnasium and found her there.  She had on a “gym” suit of baggy bloomers and the usual blouse.  He backed away from the door hastily.

At first he was jealous of Lethway.  Then that passed.  She confided to him that she did not like the manager.  After that he was sorry for him.  He was sorry for any one she did not like.  He bothered Lethway by walking the deck with him and looking at him with what Lethway refused to think was compassion.

But because, contrary to the boy’s belief, none of us is quite good or quite evil, he was kind to the boy.  The khaki stood for something which no Englishman could ignore.