Jenny conquered her tremors, rose unsteadily in the boat, and cast
herself at the brass rail that Keith had indicated. To the hands that
had been so tightly clasped together, steeling her, the rail was
startlingly cold; but the touch of it nerved her, because it was firm.
She felt the dinghy yield as she stepped from it, and she seemed for one
instant to be hanging precariously in space above the terrifying
waters. Then she was at the top of the ladder, ready for Keith's
warning shout about the descent to the deck. She jumped down. She was
aboard the yacht; and as she glanced around Keith was upon the deck
beside her, catching her arm. Jenny's triumphant complacency was so
great that she gave a tiny nervous laugh. She had not spoken at all
until this moment: Keith had not heard her voice.

"Well!" said Jenny. "_That's_ over!" And she gave an audible sigh of
relief. "Thank goodness!"

"And here you are!" Keith cried. "Aboard the _Minerva_."


iv

He led her to a door, and down three steps. And then it seemed to Jenny
as if Paradise burst upon her. She had never before seen such a room as
this cabin. It was a room such as she had dreamed about in those
ambitious imaginings of a wondrous future which had always been so
vaguely irritating to Emmy. It seemed, partly because the ceiling was
low, to be very spacious; the walls and ceiling were of a kind of dusky
amber hue; a golden brown was everywhere the prevailing tint. The tiny
curtains, the long settees into which one sank, the chairs, the shades
of the mellow lights--all were of some variety of this delicate golden