But such a condition was, after all, more apparent than real.  In his heart Aleck knew that he did love Melanie “enough,” however much that might be.  He loved her enough to want, not only and not mainly, what she could give to him; but he wanted the happiness of caring for her, cherishing her, rewarding her faith with his own.  She had not seen that, and it was his problem to make her see it.  There was only one way.  And so, in forgetting himself, forgetting his wants, his comforts, his studies and his masculine will—­herein was the blossoming of Aleck’s soul.

Melanie instinctively felt the subtle change, and knew in her heart that Aleck had won the day, though she still treated their engagement as an open question.  Aleck would read to her in his simple, unaffected manner, sometimes with Madame Reynier and Mr. Chamberlain also for audience, sometimes to her alone.  And since they lived keenly and loved, all books spoke to them of their life or their love.  A line, a phrase, a thought, would ring out of the record, and each would be glad that the other had heard that thought; sometime they would talk it all over.  They learned to laugh at their own whimsical prejudices, and then insisted on them all the harder; they learned, each from the other, some bit of robust optimism, some happiness of vision, some further reach of thought.

After they had read, they would play at quoits, struggling sternly against each other; or Chamberlain would examine Melanie in nautical lore; or together, in the evening, they would trace the constellations in the heavens.  During their first week they were in the edge of a storm for a night and a day; but they put into harbor where they were comfortable and safe, and merry as larks through it all.

So, day by day, Aleck hedged Melanie about with his love.  Was she thoughtful?  He let her take, as she would, his thoughts, the best he could give from his mature experience.  Was she gay?  He liked that even better, and delighted to cap her gaiety with his own queer, whimsical drolleries.  Whatever her mood, he would not let her get far from him in spirit.  It was not in her heart to keep him from her; but Aleck achieved the supermundane feat of making his influence felt most keenly when she was alone.  She dwelt upon him in her thoughts more intensely than she herself knew; and that intenseness was only the reflection of his own thought for her.

They had been sailing a little more than a week, changing the low, placid Connecticut fields for the rougher northern shores, going sometimes farther out to sea, but delighting most in the sweet, pine-fringed coast of Maine.  There were no more large cities to visit, only small villages where fishermen gathered after their week’s haul or where slow, primitive boat-building was still carried on.  Most of the inhabitants of the coast country appeared to be farmers as well as fishermen, even where the soil was least