"When you come to reflect that there are only a few planks between you
and the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, it makes you feel sort of
pensive."

"I beg your pardon?"

The stranger, smoking his cigarette in the lee of the deck-cabins,
turned his head sharply in the direction of the voice. He encountered
the wide, unembarrassed gaze of a girl's grey eyes. She had evidently
just come up on deck.

"I beg yours," she rejoined composedly. "I thought at first you were
some one else."

He shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. Quite obviously he was not
disposed to be sociable upon so slender an introduction.

The girl, however, made no move to retreat. She stood thoughtfully
tapping on the boards with the point of her shoe.

"Were you playing cards last night down in the saloon?" she asked
presently.

"I was looking on."

He threw the words over his shoulder, not troubling to turn.

The girl shivered. The morning air was damp and chill.