privilege I esteem it to meet Mr. Britling in this highly familiar way."

"You've not met him before?"

"I missed him by twenty-four hours when he came through Boston on the
last occasion. Just twenty-four hours. It was a matter of very great
regret to me."

"I wish I'd been paid to travel round the world."

"You must write things like Mr. Britling and then Mr. Kahn will send
you."

"Don't you think if I promised well?"

"You'd have to write some promissory notes, I think--just to convince
him it was all right."

The young lady reflected on Mr. Britling's good fortune.

"He saw India. He saw Japan. He had weeks in Egypt. And he went right
across America."

Mr. Direck had already begun on the liner to adapt himself to the
hopping inconsecutiveness of English conversation. He made now what he
felt was quite a good hop, and he dropped his voice to a confidential
undertone. (It was probably Adam in his first conversation with Eve, who
discovered the pleasantness of dropping into a confidential undertone
beside a pretty ear with a pretty wave of hair above it.)