any longer!" When I contradicted her she snubbed me, and said that I
hadn't seen enough of the world to know anything about it. But I'll have
it all out of her before I've done.'

For some days after that Caldigate kept himself aloof from Mrs. Smith,
not at all because he had ceased to notice her or to think about her,
but from a feeling of dislike to exhibit rivalry with his friend. Shand
was making himself very particular, and he thought that Shand was a fool
for his pains. He was becoming angry with Shand, and had serious
thoughts of speaking to him with solemn severity. What could such a
woman be to him? But at the bottom of all this there was something akin
to jealousy. The woman was good-looking, and certainly clever, and was
very interesting. Shand, for two or three evenings running, related his
success; how Mrs. Smith had communicated to him the fact that she
utterly despised those Cromptons, who were distant cousins of her late
husband's, and with whom she had come on board; how she preferred to be
alone to having aught to do with them; how she had one or two books with
her, and passed some hours in reading; and how she was poor, very poor,
but still had something on which to live for a few weeks after landing.
But Caldigate fancied that there must be a betrayal of trust in these
revelations, and though he was in truth interested about the woman, did
not give much encouragement to his friend.

'Upon my word,' he said, 'I don't seem to care so very much about Mrs.
Smith's affairs.'

'I do,' said Shand, who was thick-skinned and irrepressible. 'I declared
my intention of unravelling the mystery, and I mean to do it.'

'I hope you are not too inquisitive?'