Howard Stanton looked down in silence. It was useless to plead. There was resolution in every line of the little figure in the gray-checked travelling-dress. The obstinacy of that clear-cut face under the visor of the close-fitting cap he had known since childhood.
"I can't stand it, Nannie!" he exclaimed. "Reasons and arguments simply have nothing to do with it. I cannot stand it to wait here and see you sail away out of my life. You are in the warp and the woof of the whole of it. I have loved you ever since I was five years old."
The vehement words of the young man and the girl's broken answers were drowned in the noises of the wharf and the sound of the water breaking on the piles. Presently there was a lull. A cry of "All ashore!" came from the steamer. Anne Bradford paused on the gang-plank and looked up, hurt by her sympathy with this strong feeling that she could not understand.
