Having established a Code of Signals which enabled them to communicate
privately, while the eyes and ears of others were wide open on every
side of them, Natalie and Launce were next confronted by the more
serious difficulty of finding a means of meeting together at stolen
interviews on board the yacht. Possessing none of those precious
moral qualifications already enumerated as the qualifications of an
accomplished lover at sea, Launce had proved unequal to grapple with the
obstacles in his way. Left to her own inventive resources, Natalie
had first suggested the young surgeon's medical studies as Launce's
unanswerable excuse for shutting himself up at intervals in the lower
regions, and had then hit on the happy idea of tearing her trimmings,
and condemning herself to repair her own carelessness, as the
all-sufficient reason for similar acts of self-seclusion on her side.
In this way the lovers contrived, while the innocent ruling authorities
were on deck, to meet privately below them, on the neutral ground of the
main cabin; and there, by previous arrangement at the breakfast-table,
they were about to meet privately now.
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