Or, worse still,"--and here she laughed, I thought, a little ironically,
--"avoid me, and be as icy as you have been--fervid?"

"Mrs. Falchion," I said, "your enemy I do not wish to be--I could not be
if I wished; but, for the rest, you must please let me see what I may
think of myself to-morrow. There is much virtue in to-morrow," I added.
"It enables one to get perspective."

"I understand," she said; and then was silent. We walked the deck slowly
for several minutes. Then we were accosted by two ladies of a committee
that had the fancy-dress ball in hand. They wished to consult Mrs.
Falchion in certain matters of costume and decoration, for which, it had
been discovered, she had a peculiar faculty. She turned to me half
inquiringly, and I bade her good-night, inwardly determined (how easy it
is after having failed to gratify ourselves!) that the touch of her
fingers should never again make my heart beat faster.

I joined Colonel Ryder and Clovelly in the smoking-room. Hungerford,
as I guessed gladly, was gone. I was too much the coward to meet his eye
just then. Colonel Ryder was estimating the amount he would wager--if he
were in the habit of betting--that the 'Fulvia' could not turn round in
her tracks in twenty minutes, while he parenthetically endorsed
Hungerford's remarks to me--though he was ignorant of them--that lascars
should not be permitted on English passenger ships. He was supported by
Sir Hayes Craven, a shipowner, who further said that not one out of ten
British sailors could swim, while not five out of ten could row a boat
properly. Ryder's anger was great, because Clovelly remarked with mock
seriousness that the lascars were picturesque, and asked the American if
he had watched them listlessly eating rice and curry as they squatted
between decks; whether he had observed the Serang, with his silver