possibilities of trade.'

Trying hard to recollect her geography, Miss. Lord affected but a
slight interest.

'There's no direct way of getting there,' Tarrant pursued. 'What
route should you suggest?'

She was right, after all. He wished to convict her of ignorance. Her
cheeks were now burning, beyond a doubt, and she felt revengeful.

'I advise you to make inquiries at a shipping-office,' was her
distant reply.

'It seems'--he was smiling at Nancy--'I shall have to go to New
York, and then take the Cuba mail.'

'Are you going to join your friend in business?'

'Business, I fear, is hardly my vocation.'

There was a tremor on Nancy's lips, and about her eyelids. She said
abruptly:

'I thought you were perhaps in business?'

'Did you? What suggested it?'

Tarrant looked fixedly at her; in his expression, as in his voice,
she detected a slight disdain, and that decided her to the utterance