"There is only one way to find that out," said Latimer; "that is to marry him. I mean, of course," he corrected hastily, "to marry me."
One day, when on their way to the cliff at the end of the wood road, the man who makes the Nantucket sailor and peddles him passed through the village; and Latimer bought the sailorman and carried him to their hiding-place. There he fastened him to the lowest limb of one of the ancient pine-trees that helped to screen their hiding-place from the world. The limb reached out free of the other branches, and the wind caught the sailorman fairly and spun him like a dancing dervish. Then it tired of him, and went off to try to drown the Chapman boy, leaving the sailorman motionless with his arms outstretched, balancing in each hand a tiny oar and smiling happily.
"He has a friendly smile," said Helen; "I think he likes us."
"He is on guard," Latimer explained. "I put him there to warn us if any one approaches, and when we are not here, he is to frighten away trespassers. Do you understand?" he demanded of the sailorman. "Your duty is to protect this beautiful lady. So long as I love her you must guard this place. It is a life sentence. You are always on watch. You never sleep. You are her slave. She says you have a friendly smile. She wrongs you. It is a beseeching, abject, worshipping smile. I am sure when I look at her mine is equally idiotic. In fact, we are in many ways alike. I also am her slave. I also am devoted only to her service. And I never sleep, at least not since I met her."
From her throne among the pine needles Helen looked up at the sailorman and frowned.
"It is not a happy simile," she objected. "For one thing, a sailorman has a sweetheart in every port."
"And," continued the girl with some asperity, "if there is anything on earth that changes its mind as often as a weather-vane, that is less CERTAIN, less CONSTANT--"
"Constant?" Latimer laughed at her in open scorn. "You come back here," he challenged, "months from now, years from now, when the winds have beaten him, and the sun blistered him, and the snow frozen him, and you will find him smiling at you just as he is now, just as confidently, proudly, joyously, devotedly. Because those who are your slaves, those who love YOU, cannot come to any harm; only if you disown them, only if you drive them away!"