nt, who had entered after Miss Rowly:

'Mr. Everard would like his carriage. By the way,' she added, turning to
him in a friendly way as an afterthought, 'will you not stay, Mr.
Everard, and take lunch with us? My aunt has been rather moping lately;
I am sure your presence would cheer her up.'

'Yes, do stay, Mr. Everard!' added Miss Rowly placidly. 'It would make a
pleasant hour for us all.'

Leonard, with a great effort, said with conventional politeness:

'Thanks, awfully! But I promised my father to be home for lunch!' and he
withdrew to the door which the servant held open.

He went out filled with anger and despair, and, sad for him, with a
fierce, overmastering desire--love he called it--for the clever, proud,
imperious beauty who had so outmatched and crushed him.

That beautiful red head, which he had at first so despised, was
henceforth to blaze in his dreams.

CHAPTER XXIII--THE MAN

On the _Scoriac_ Harold An Wolf, now John Robinson, kept aloof from every
one. He did not make any acquaintances, did not try to. Some of those
at table with him, being ladies and gentlemen, now and again made a
polite remark; to which he answered with equal politeness. Being what he
was he could not willingly offend any one; and there was nothing in his
manner to repel any kindly overture to acquaintance. But this was the
full length his acquaintanceship went; so he gradually felt himself
practically alone. This was just what he wished; he sat all day silent
and alone, or else walked up and down the great deck that ran from stem
to stern, still always alone. As there were no second-class or steerage
passengers on the _Scoriac_, there were no deck restraints, and so there
was ample room for individual solitude. The travellers, however, were a
sociable lot, and a general feeling of friendliness was abroad. The
first four days of the journey were ideally fine, and life was a joy. The
great ship, with bilge keels, was as steady as a rock.

Among the other passengers was an American family consisting of Andrew
Stonehouse, the great ironmaster and contractor, with his wife and little
daughter.

Stonehouse was a remarkable man in his way, a typical product of the
Anglo-Saxon under American conditions. He had started in young manhood
with nothing but a good education, due in chief to his own industry and
his having taken advantage to the full of such opportunities as life had
afforded to him. By unremit