"Because I was mad, and meant to get even with you for what you did at Rodman's this afternoon. You might do me a great service, Don John, if you would. I like Nellie Patterdale; I mean, I'm in love with her. I don't believe I can live without her."
"I'll bet you'll have to," interposed Donald, indignantly.
"You don't know what it is to love, Don John."
"I don't want to know yet awhile; and I think you had better live on a different sort of grub. What a stupid idea, for a fellow like you to think of such a girl as Nellie Patterdale!"
"Is it any worse for me to think of her, than it is for you to do so?" asked Laud.
"I never thought of her in any such way as that. We went to school together, and have always been good friends; that's all."
"That's enough," sighed Laud. "I actually suffer for her sake. If the quest were hopeless," Laud read novels--"I think I should drown myself."
"You had better do it right off, then," added Donald.
"You can pity me, Don John, for I am miserable. Day and night I think only of her. My feelings have made me almost crazy, and I hardly knew what I was about when I applied the incendiary torch to the Maud."
"I thought it was a card of friction matches."
"The world will laugh and jeer at me for loving one above my station; but love makes us equals."
"Perhaps it does when the love is on both sides," added the practical boat-builder.
"But I think I am fitted to adorn a higher station than that in which I was born."
"If so, you will rise like a stick of timber forced under the water; but it strikes me that you have begun in the wrong way to figure for a rise."
"But I wish to rise only for Nellie's sake. You can help me, Don John; you can take me into her presence, where I can have the opportunity to win her affection."
"I guess not, Laud. Shall I tell you what she said to me this afternoon?"
"She said you were an impudent puppy, and she was sorry I invited you."
"Did she say that?" asked Laud, looking up to the cold, pale moon.
"She did; and I was obliged to tell her that I didn't invite you."
"Perhaps I have been a fool," mused the lover.
"There's no doubt of it. Nellie Patterdale dislikes, and even despises you. I have heard her say as much, in so many words. That ought to comfort you, and convince you that it is no use to fish any longer in those waters."