barmaid with him . . . is she with him?" He continued to watch,
apparently for some sign that this coincidence of his captain and a
barmaid in a public office was designed.

The bent gaze of the master of the _Cygnet_ might have noticed the boots
of his engineer, for he took in the room no higher than that. Then he
came forward with his umbrella, still in contemplation. It might have
been no more than a coincidence. She, too, approached, a little behind
him, but obscuring his dull meagreness, for she was a head taller, and a
bold and challenging figure. Her blond hair distinguished her even more
than the emphasis of her florid hat. Her pallor that morning refined the
indubious coarseness of her face, and changed vulgarity into the
attractive originality of a spirited character. Many there knew her, but
she recognized nobody. She yawned once, in a fair piece of acting, and
in her movements and the poise of her head there was a disdain almost
plain enough to be insolence. Purdy turned to her, and the strange pair
conferred. I heard Hanson say to himself: "What on earth." She left
Purdy, bent her head with a gracious but stressed smile to Macandrew, and
went to the bench by the wall, where she sat, waiting, with her legs
crossed in a way that was a defiance and an attraction in such a place,
where a woman is rarely seen. She read a newspaper, perhaps because that
acted as a screen, though she turned its pages with a nervous abruptness
which betrayed her imitation of indifference.


3

The _Medea_ and the _Cygnet_, and the other ships I knew which carried
those whose fortunes were some concern of mine, might have sailed over
the edge of the world. My only communication was with an occasional