"I say, what a jolly good sailor you seem to be--pity your aunt's
not!"

I looked up and saw Apollo sitting beside me. Or rather, shall I
say a young man who might have walked straight out of an
advertisement for a ready-made clothing house, so ideal and
impossible was his beauty. He was very tall--I had to tilt my chin
quite painfully to look up at him--and from the loose collar of his
silk shirt his throat rose like a column. His skin was a beautiful
clear pink and white just tinged with tan--like a meringue that has
been in the oven for two minutes exactly. He had a straight,
chiseled profile and his hair was thick and chestnut and wavy and
he had clear sea-gray eyes. To give him at once his full name and
titles, he was the Honorable Cuthbert Patrick Ruthmore Vane, of
High Staunton Manor, Kent, England. But as I was ignorant of this,
I can truthfully say that his looks stunned me purely on their own
merits.

Outwardly calm, I replied, "Yes, its too bad, but then who ever
dreamed that Aunt Jane would go adventuring at her time of life? I
thought nobody over the age of thirteen, and then boys, ever went
treasure-hunting."

"Ah, but lads of thirteen couldn't well come such a distance on
their own, you know," returned Apollo, with the kindest air of
making allowance for the female intellect.

I hurriedly turned the subject.