, and with an accent of deliberate
disgust.

Her heart was heavy but everything he said seemed to force the tone
of levity on to her lips. "As long as I don't look like a guy," she
remarked, negligently, and then caught the direction of his lurid stare
which as a matter of fact was fastened on her bare feet. She checked
herself, "Oh, yes, if you prefer it I will put on my stockings. But you
know I must be very careful of them. It's the only pair I have here. I
have washed them this morning in that bathroom which is built over the
stern. They are now drying over the rail just outside. Perhaps you will
be good enough to pass them to me when you go on deck."

Mr. Travers spun round and went on deck without a word. As soon as she
was alone Mrs. Travers pressed her hands to her temples, a gesture of
distress which relieved her by its sincerity. The measured footsteps of
two men came to her plainly from the deck, rhythmic and double with
a suggestion of tranquil and friendly intercourse. She distinguished
particularly the footfalls of the man whose life's orbit was most remote
from her own. And yet the orbits had cut! A few days ago she could
not have even conceived of his existence, and now he was the man whose
footsteps, it seemed to her, her ears could single unerringly in the
tramp of a crowd. It was, indeed, a fabulous thing. In the half light of
her over-heated shelter she let an irresolute, frightened smile pass off
her lips before she, too, went on deck.

II

An ingeniously constructed framework of light posts and thin laths
occupied the greater part of the deck amidships of the Emma. The four
walls of that airy structure were made of muslin. It was comparatively
lofty. A door-like arrangement of light battens filled with calico
was further protected by a system of curtains calculated to baffle the
pursuit of mosquitoes that haunted the shores of the lagoon in great
singing clouds from sunset till sunrise. A lot of fine mats covered
the deck space within the transparent shelter devised by Lingard and
Jorgenson to make Mrs. Travers' existence possible during the time when
the fate of the two men, and indeed probably of everybody else on board
the Emma, had to hang in the balance. Very soon Lingard's unbidden and
fatal guests had learned the trick of stepping in and out of the place
quickly. Mr. d'Alcacer performed the feat without apparent haste, almost
nonchalantly, yet as well as anybody. It was generally con