"The girl is shorter than I," said Stephanie, "but on a pinch she can wear my clothes."
"If she’s an islander you’ll find it difficult to get her into--er--many of the things civilized people wear."
"I shan’t try," said Stephanie, smiling at her lover’s sudden hesitancy. "I’ve got all sorts of negligées and kimonos that she can wear without--"
"So you can break her into the harness of civilization gradually," laughed George.
"I’m sure she’d never get your dainty slippers on," went on the fatuous lover, and Stephanie, looking down with him at her small, exquisitely shod feet, agreed with him.
"Her feet, while they are not large, are larger than mine, but beautifully shaped, and I dare say they have never been bound up in a shoe."
"I feel that this is to be our last happy day," said Harnash, irrelevantly.
"We’ll hope not," said Stephanie. "Indeed, I’m sure it won’t be."
And so they babbled on, forgetful for the moment of all the facts of the case and the demands of the situation, not the least of which was Captain Weatherby’s firm conviction that unless he got the ship ashore in a very short time, they would be adrift on whatever makeshift support they could compass.
It came into Harnash’s mind, as he thought of what was laid upon him, that such a catastrophe might not be the worst thing to which to look forward. At least, he and Stephanie would die together, and if contrition, sincere repentance, and an earnest purpose of confession and amendment availed, they would be together in some future, where there might be no giving in marriage, but where there would be love and joy and the communion of soul with soul in ways scarcely to be apprehended by poor humanity.
The two patients, aided thereto by the doctor’s wise regimen and skillful prescription, slept quietly on through the long day. Celeste watched the maiden most of the time, but she was relieved on occasion by Stephanie, who did not tire of studying the innocent, charming, and beautiful face and figure of the girl, so quietly sleeping; the mirror which had so frightened and fascinated her lying near to the cheek that it so beautifully reflected.
Harnash and Maynard visited Beekman’s cabin from time to time, but his slumber was even more profound. The doctor found that the nascent fever had been broken, and that nature, good health, splendid constitution, and the medicine were doing exactly what he had prophesied they would.