t is why
speed has been reduced."

Coffee was served at table and presently, amidst the fumes of cigarette
smoke, the conversation turned to politics, the works of Anatole France,
and other absorbing subjects. One might have fancied oneself in Paris
but for the vibrations of the propeller, the heave of the sea, and the
hundred little noises that mark the passage of a ship under way.

Later Mademoiselle de Bromsart found herself in the smoking-room alone
with her host, Madame de Warens having retired to her state-room and the
others gone on deck.

The girl was doing some embroidery work which she had fetched from her
cabin and the Prince was glancing at the pages of the Revue des Deux
Mondes. Presently he laid the book down.

"I was in earnest," said he.

"How?" she asked, glancing up from her work.

"When I proposed altering the course. Nothing would please me more than
to spoil a plan of my own to please you."

"It is good of you to say that," she replied, "all the same I am glad I
did not spoil your plan, not so much for your sake as my own."

"How?"

"I would rather die than run away from danger."

"So you feared danger?"

"No, I did not fear it, but I felt it. I felt a premonition of danger. I
did not say so at dinner. I did not want to alarm the others."

He looked at her curiously for a moment, contrasting her fragility and
beauty with the something unbendable that was her spirit, her soul--call
it what you will.

"Well," said he, "your slightest wish is my law. I have been going to
speak to you for the last few days. I will say what I want to say now.
It is only four words. Will you marry me?"

She looked up at him, meeting his eyes full and straight.

"No," said she, "it is impossible."

"Why?"

"I have a very great regard for you--but--"

"You do not love me?"

She said nothing, going on with her work calmly as though the
conversation was about some ordinary topic.

"I don't see why you should," he went on, "but look around you--how many
people marry for love now-a-days--and those who do, are they any the
happier? I have seen a very great deal of the world and I know for a
fact that happiness in marriage has little to do with what the poets
call love and everything to do with companionship. If a man and woman
are good companions then they are happy together, if not they are
miserable, no matter how much they may love one another at the start."

"Have you seen much of the world?" she