and golfed and ridden and driven and motored and swum and danced
with Ann for years. A ghastly being entitled Edgar Something or
Teddy Something had beaten Jimmy by a short head in the race for
the deck-steward, the prize of which was the placing of his
deck-chair next to Ann's. Jimmy had been driven from the
promenade deck by the spectacle of this beastly creature lying
swathed in rugs reading best-sellers to her.

He had scarcely seen her to speak to since the beginning of the
voyage. When she was not walking with Rolly or playing
shuffle-board with Twombley, she was down below ministering to
the comfort of a chronically sea-sick aunt, referred to in
conversation as "poor aunt Nesta". Sometimes Jimmy saw the little
man--presumably her uncle--in the smoking-room, and once he came
upon the stout boy recovering from the effects of a cigar in a
quiet corner of the boat-deck: but apart from these meetings the
family was as distant from him as if he had never seen Ann at
all--let alone saved her life.

And now she had dropped down on him from heaven. They were alone
together with the good clean wind and the bracing scud. Rollo,
Clarence, Dwight, and Twombley, not to mention Edgar or possibly
Teddy, were down below--he hoped, dying. They had the world to
themselves.

"I love rough weather," said Ann, lifting her face to the wind.
Her eyes were very bright. She was beyond any doubt or question
the only girl on earth. "Poor aunt Nesta doesn't. She was bad
enough when it was quite calm, but this storm has finished her.
I've just been down below, trying to cheer her up."